What was the place of the artist in a new society? How would he thrive where monarchy, aristocracy, and an established church—those traditional patrons of painting, sculpture, and architecture—were repudiated so vigorously? Neil Harris examines the relationships between American cultural values and American society during the formative years of American art and explores how conceptions of the artist's social role changed during those years.

Thomas Crawford (1813–1857) was the first American sculptor to study in Italy for an extended period of time. There, along with other artists—Greenough, Story, and Powers—he was part of a group that made prolific contributions to American neoclassical art. He is best known as the sculptor of much of the statuary and bas-reliefs of our nationÆs Capitol: the pediment figures over the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and the bronze Freedom atop the CapitolÆs dome. In writing this biography, Robert Gale was given exclusive access to all of CrawfordÆs personal papers by the sculptorÆs granddaughter. An appendix lists extant works of Crawford and where they are found, and several plates illustrate his sculpture.