American Collection
Gilbert Stuart, American, active in the United States, England, and Ireland, 1755-1828
Bishop Butson, ca. 1790, oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. George L. Bagby
The American Collection encompasses paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, glass, folk art, decorative arts and material culture objects. The collection also contains small collections of Native American works from North, Central and South America.
Collection strengths include paintings from 1790 to the present; prints from 1830s to the present; and sculpture and decorative arts from the 18th century to the present. Please see other specific collection areas for more information on American glass, folk art, The Daywood Collection, The Winslow Anderson Haitian Collection, The Marion C. Korstanje Natural History Print Collection, and The Herman P. Dean Firearms Collection, all of which contain American works of art.
Hiram Powers, American, 1805-1873
Proserpine, ca. 1844, marble
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John C. C. Mayo, II
The Fitzpatrick and Daywood collections contain strong examples of 19th and early 20th century paintings, including Hudson River School, tonalism, realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, and including works by all members of 'The Eight'. The holdings include such noteworthy artists as David Johnson, Ralph Blakelock, Alexander Wyant, John Peto, George Inness, Samuel F. B. Morse, Winslow Homer, John LaFarge, James Buttersworth, Paul Sawyier, Maurice Prendergast, Frank Benson, John Twachtman, Childe Hassam, Willard L. Metcalf, J. Alden Weir, Charles Hawthorne, Blanche Lazzell, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, Charles Burchfield, Robert Motherwell, and Franz Kline.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse, American, 1791-1872
Portrait of Susan Walker Morse, ca. 1820, oil on board
Gift of Mr. Alex E. Booth, Jr.
Sculptures in the Museum's collection range from the neo classical to minimalist. Representative examples of large sculpture both indoor (Alexander Calder, Dale Chihuly, Hiram Powers, Harry Bertoia) and outside (Beverly Pepper, George Rickey, Seymour Lipman, Richard Stankiewicz, Daniel Rhodes), and small-scale bronzes (Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Harriet Frishmuth, Daniel Chester French) round out the American offerings. Early works by many of the studio glass pioneers became part of the collection as a result of a series of exhibitions from 1976-1988, including pivotal pieces by studio glass pioneers such as Harvey Littleton, Dominick Labino, Fritz Dreisbach, Joel Philip Myers, Dale Chihuly, Michael Peisner, Toots Zynsky, Ginny Ruffner and many others.
George Rickey, American, 1907-2002
Four Lines Oblique Gyratory Square, 1976, stainless steel
Funds provided by The David Fox family in memory of David Fox, Sr.
Representative examples of 19th up to the mid-20th century prints include John James Audubon, James A. McNeil Whistler, Joseph Pennell, Childe Hassam, Frank Benson, John Sloan, John Taylor Arms, Kerr Eby, Blanche Lazzell, Martin Lewis, Edward Hopper, Raphael Soyer, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and John Steuart Curry.
The Collection contains a large and impressive collection of prints in a wide variety of techniques representing all the major art movements in America from the 1960s onward. Artists include Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Cy Twombly, Helen Frankenthaler, Red Grooms, Yvonne Jacquette, Robert Longo, Jim Dine, Keith Haring, John Buck, Chuck Close, Kiki Smith, Enrique Chagoya, and Willie Cole, among many others.
The Museum has made a commitment to purchase works by artists who visit as part of the Walter Gropius Master Artist Workshops, and from the Museum's juried regional show, Exhibition 280.
