United States art

Painting and sculpture in the USA from colonial times to the present. Initially strongly influenced by European art, by the 19th century US artists were cultivating an American artistic heritage that would inspire future generations. The unspoiled landscapes romantically depicted in the 18th and 19th centuries gave way to realistic city scenes in the 20th. Modern movements have flourished in the USA, among them abstract expressionism and pop art.

US art is characterized by stylistic variances that exist as a result of the country's overwhelming size and broad geographical differences; the subject matter and artistic style of urban artists differs greatly from those leading a more isolated, country life. Financial growth or decline, political concerns, individual cultural ancestry, and technological advancements have also affected the development of US art.

Colonial

Painting in colonial America begins with the work of artist-explorers and naturalists, of whom the 16th-century watercolourist John White is a notable example. A provincial form of portrait painting, resembling 16th-century English portraiture, next developed as the colonies were settled, exemplified by the work of the Freake Limner (painter of the Freake family), around 1670-75, in New England. The painting Portrait of John Freake and Mrs Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary (Worchester Art Museum , Massachusetts) is an excellent example of these portraits. Colonial sculpture in the East only exists in the decorative carving of wooden furniture and in metalwork.

18th century

The early 18th century saw a more elaborate reflection of European portraiture as trained artists moved to the now settled colonies. Among them was John Smibert who settled in Boston 1688-1751, a Scot from Edinburgh who painted in the style of Kneller. Robert Feke, on the other hand, was born in America and succeeded Smibert in great portraiture. In the later 18th century (around the time of the American Revolution), Europe called to American-born painters, for example Benjamin West and J S Copley. However, both artists had much influence in the USA, for example on Charles Willson Peale (painter of the Revolutionary figures and founder of the school of Philadelphia painting) and John Trumbull. The work of West and Copley is highly regarded throughout the world. A native development of great interest in the 18th and 19th centuries was that of a ‘primitive’ or folk art practised by sign painters and other craftspeople and amateurs, Edward Hicks being of note.

19th century

Neoclassicism smoothly gave way to Romanticism, particularly in landscape, in the 19th century, first marked by the imaginative paintings of Washington Allston, then by a succession of those incited to explore the vast continent artistically, for example Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, and Caleb Bingham. Cole led a number of artists painting along the Hudson River, which became loosely grouped as the Hudson River School, the first such school of art in the USA. The explorations of landscape painters were complemented by those of the artist-naturalist John James Audubon. Landscape painting remained the most popular subject throughout the 19th century, but still life and history painting were also common themes.

The later 19th century saw many artists turning back to Rome, Paris, or London for training, inspiration, or a sympathetic environment. James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent were the most eminent, while a host of others, including Mary Cassatt, studied in the academic ateliers of Paris and Munich. The high regard in which Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins are held stems in part from their sturdy independence of this trend, and their portrayal of US life.

Early 20th century

The early 20th century saw determined and courageous efforts to look at the USA in an American way. ‘The Eight’, a group of 1908 (Robert Henri, William Glackens, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and Arthur Bowen Davies), though varied in their individual styles, combined to make a gesture towards this end. They were dubbed the Ashcan School in reference to their interest in city squalor. It has its continuance in the work of George Wesley Bellows, Reginald Marsh, and New Realism, for example, the work of Edward Hopper among others. Sometimes called American Scene painting, and originally fuelled by the US government's Federal Art Project, the realism first applied to New York City and other urban areas expanded into the Regionalism of the 1930s, as in the work of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. Realism, in various forms, continued to be the dominant style throughout the early and mid-20th century in, for example, the work of the Social Realists, such as Ben Shahn and Harlem Renaissance artists Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden; New Realists such as Andrew Wyeth, and the Regionalists.

Although many Regionalists rejected it, enthusiasm for a modern art of international validity was quickened by the celebrated Armory Show of 1913, and by acquaintance with the School of Paris in the expatriate 1920s (see John Marin and Marsden Hartley). Cubist influence can be seen in the art of the Precisionists, for example the work of Georgia O'Keeffe and Charles Sheeler. In addition, during the first part of the century, Alfred Stieglitz's ‘291’ gallery was in full swing exhibiting contemporary modern art.

The influence of modern European art was intensified by the World War II period, which brought many artists to the USA from Europe, to visit or settle, such as Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, George Grosz, and Lyonel Feininger.

Mid-20th century

After World War II, and as a consequence of tremendous advancement in abstract art, New York replaced Paris as the art capital of the modern world. Abstract expressionism was exemplified by the inventor of action painting, Jackson Pollock, and the spiritual Mark Rothko, whose work is often considered to belong to the closely linked colour-field painting movement The sculptor Alexander Calder invented mobiles, while hard-edge painter Ellsworth Kelly created works with pure colour, smooth surfaces, and precision. The pop art movement, begun in the 1950s with Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and led by such artists as Andy Warhol, was a reaction against abstract art. It used precise and distorted images from the media, such as advertising, film, television, and comic strips. Andy Warhol painted soup cans in 1962; Jasper Johns painted flags and numbers; Roy Lichtenstein used comic-strip characters to depict romance and heroism; and Claes Oldenburg made soft sculptures of everyday items, many times their normal size.

Late 20th century

On the tails of pop art came Photorealism; painters such as Chuck Close and Richard Estes created portraits and urban scenes in such a way that the paintings had the visual quality of photographs. Much of the irony in Photorealism and pop art, along with major advancements in technology, led to what has been called the age of pluralism. Staged photography, mixed media, or multimedia, art, kinetic art, performance art, and conceptual art, as well as a passion for American Indian art, all dominated the latter part of the 20th century. By the 1990s, extremely high prices were being paid at auction for works of art by well known artists; museum facilities were expanded to house donated collections and travelling exhibitions; and the designs for art exhibitions, their catalogues, and posters had become, in many ways, art forms in themselves.