American Art
18th Century Artists
There was a market in the Colonial period for portraitsas the merchant class gained wealth. This rising class wanted their standing staged and materialized, and wanted portraits to express it. For the artists of the new nation coming into being, however, there was no access to the training. In the period following the Revolution, there was some development of history paintings, but mostly it was the portrait painting that continued to dominate.
19th century
The 19th century brought with it the Hudson River School, the new nation's first school of painting. Under Thomas Cole, then others such as Frederick Edwin Church, American artists came to realize that their own country offered unique, beautiful subjects of its own; this became more and more apparent the further settlers pushed westward. The Hudson River School was important in its influence on later schools, such as the Luminists and artists such as Frederick Remington who painted American Western heritage, which constituted a school of its own.
The 19th century did not bring a significant development of history painting, although one of America's most iconic paintings, Washington Crossing the Delaware, dates from this period. Rather, portrait painting continued its prominence.
There was also greater input from Europe - several major artists lived much of their lives in Europe, such as John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler and Mary Cassatt; and it was in France that Theodore Robinson first encountered Monet, and thus seeded the start of American Impressionism.
20th century
American art in the 20th century was an explosion of exploration, styles and discoveries. Artists turned first to American Realism, founded by Robert Henri, which developed into the celebrated Ashcan School. Painters such as George Bellows and others portrayed the rougher side of city life, hence the name of their school.
As Alfred Stieglitz, through his 291 Gallery in New York, developed photography as an art form, he also promoted American Modernism. Abstract art and Cubism reached America's shores under the influence of Pablo Picasso and George Braque, to be followed later by European Surrealism, and a multitude of artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe and Patrick Henry Bruce.
African-American artists sought to counter racial stereotypes as part of the New York based Harlem Renaissance, notably in the work of Aaron Douglas, although other proponents of the school were found throughout the country.
With the Great Depression, President Roosevelt's New Deal program established public arts projects to give work to unemployed American artists. Inspired mainly by painter Diego Rivera, and other Mexican mural painters, this public art was created by some of America's best-known artists of the time, while others developed in the direction of Social Realism.
After World War II emerged Abstract Expressionism, the first school of American Art to have worldwide impact. It emphasized the unconscious. The leading proponent was Jackson Pollock, who became celebrated for his “drip paintings”. Others included Louise Bourgeois, Mark Rothko and Alexander Calder, and many others all came to be grouped together under the broad, all-encompassing name of American Abstract Expressionism.
After the 1950s, American art developed in several directions. Realism continued in the work of Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth. Other artists broke completely to work in mixed-media, combining found objects, newspaper, paint and photographs or evolving into Pop Art, the satirical reproduction of everyday objects of American popular culture and consumerism - Andy Warhol.