American Masterpieces: Singular Expressions of National Genius - Hardcover

Wilmerding, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1567926401 ISBN 13: 9781567926408

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2019

Synopsis

John Wilmerding has been an original and sustained scholarly voice in American art history for six decades. This elegant hardcover celebrates one small slice of his work: the twenty-five Masterpiece columns he has written for The Wall Street Journal between 2006 and the present. Each succinct, accessible essay integrates a detailed visual analysis of a major American cultural artifact with insights not only into the art and its creator, but also into the national context at the time of its execution. The book features a full-sized reproduction of each sculpture, painting, piece of architecture, and photograph discussed, plus an additional detail selected for extended consideration. It is surely the most intelligent picture book we have seen in some time. Anyone with a taste for American art and art history will be thrilled by this broad, representative, and eclectic selection of the best this country has produced.

About this title

About the Author:

John Wilmerding is currently a Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, a member of the Board of Trustees at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and an advisory board member on committees for Smithsonian Studies in American Art and Harvard University Art Museums. Wilmerding was a visiting curator in the department of American Art at the Met and is also the author of many books and catalogues on American art.

Review:

The pieces here assembled cover the full spectrum of American art, both in terms of genre painting, sculpture, architecture, public monuments and time period, ranging from the Colonial era through Americas Gilded Age to modernism and the current moment. To be sure, boldface names like Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth are here, but there are also less well-known figures such as Robert S. Duncanson and Richard Caton Woodville... Besides Johns encyclopedic knowledge of American art and culture what unites these essays is his ability to take readers to the heart of a work of art or an artists intention in the most succinct yet penetrating prose. --Eric Gibson | Arts in Review Editor | The Wall Street Journal

The Boston publisher David R. Godine has long championed fine bookmaking. Witness John Wilmerdings American Masterpieces: Singular Expressions of National Genius, a gathering of essays contributed to the Wall Street Journal by this distinguished former curator of American art at the National Gallery. Some of Wilmerdings masterpieces will be familiar Mary Cassatt s Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, Saint-Gaudens memorial for Clover Adams (in the District s Rock Creek Cemetery) but others will be surprising, such as Henry H. Richardsons Crane Memorial Library in Quincy, Mass. --Michael Dirda | Book Critic | The Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1567926401
• ISBN 13: 9781567926408
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128