Between 1843 and 1922, American artists travelled to the Near East and North Africa, painting all that they discovered. Edwin Lord Weeks and Frederick Bridgman are amongst the most famous but there was also Francis Bacon, Samuel Colman, Swain Gifford and

This transatlantic study analyses a missing chapter in the history of art collecting, the first art market bubble in the United States. In the decades following the Civil War, French art monopolized art collections across the United States. During this “Gilded Age picture rush,” the commercial art system-art dealers, galleries, auction houses, exhibitions, museums, art journals, press coverage, art histories, and collection catalogues-established a strong foothold it has not relinquished to this day. In addition, a pervasive concern for improving aesthetics and providing the best contemporary art to educate the masses led to the formation not only of private art collections, but also of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to the publication of art histories. Richly informed by collectors' and art dealers' diaries, letters, stock books, journals, and hitherto neglected art histories, The New York Market for French Art in the Gilded Age, 1867-1893 offers a fresh perspective on this trailblazing era.

"Many well-known artists, including Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, and lesser-known artists like Harriet Hosmer are closely examined, as is the art world of the time. In addition to discussing the free movement of American visual culture between 'high' and 'low', Barbara Groseclose interweaves nineteenth-century art criticism with current art history, to create a fascinating insight into the changing interpretations of American art of this period."--BOOK JACKET.

Arranged in alphabetical order, these 5 volumes encompass the history of the cultural development of America with over 2300 entries.

Sarah Burns tells the story of artists in American society during a period of critical transition from Victorian to modern values, examining how culture shaped the artists and how artists shaped their culture. Focusing on such important painters as James McNeill Whistler, William Merritt Chase, Cecilia Beaux, Winslow Homer, and Albert Pinkham Ryder, she investigates how artists reacted to the growing power of the media, to an expanding consumer society, to the need for a specifically American artist type, and to the problem of gender.

Collects the best artwork created before, during and following the Civil War, in the years between 1859 and 1876, along with extensive quotations from men and women alive during the war years and text by literary figures, including Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. 15,000 first printing.