The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The United States of America

The United States was born of European parents, and its culture reflects this rich heritage. But Americans have always been aware of the unique vision that led them to explore a new continent and establish a nation there. Historically, the «American experience» was seen largely as a political one—embodied by the institutions and outlook that distinguished the United States from her European forebears. More recently, however, Americans have become aware of the uniqueness of their artistic heritage, which, though it originated abroad, developed and flourished in ways far different from the arts of Europe. For several decades after the founding of the republic, many American painters and sculptors went abroad for their training, and even those who stayed at home copied European models as best they could. Similarly, American craftsmen at first designed furniture and other decorative objects according to what was fashionable in London or Paris. However, as the nations wealth and self-confidence grew, so did its trust in its own artistic inclinations, and in the twentieth century Americans began to sense that they could create a great art that was completely and uniquely their own. Largely as a result of its growing preeminence both politically and culturally, America has begun to look back into its own past, inquiring whether its artists and craftsmen, who long remained in Europes shadow, had not in fact created a distinct and distinguished art. This reexamination has led to countless rediscoveries of artists whose names were only dimly remembered and of craftsmen whose fine products were neglected as mere curiosities. Now, in museums and colleges, in galleries and auction rooms, we sense the excitement of discovery as a two-hundred-year-old artistic tradition is reevaluated and restored. This volume, devoted to the arts of the United States of America, is the ninth publication in a series of twelve volumes that, collectively, represent the scope of the Metropolitan Museum's holdings while selectively presenting the very finest objects from each of its curatorial departments. This ambitious publication program was conceived as a way of presenting the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to the widest possible audience. More detailed than a museum guide and broader in scope than the Museum's scholarly publications, this series presents paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs; sculpture, forniture, and the decorative arts; costumes, arms, and armor-all integrated in such a way as to offer a unified and coherent view of the periods and cultures represented by the Museum's collections. The objects that have been selected for inclusion in the series consti tute a small portion of the Metropolitan's holdings, but they admirably represent the range and excellence of the various curatorial departments. The texts relate each of the objects to the cultura} milieu and period from which it derives, and incorporate the fruits of recent scholarship. The accompanying photographs, in many instances specially commissioned for this series, offer a splendid and detailed tour of the Museum. We are particularly grateful to the late Mr. Tetsuhiko Fukutake, who, while president of Fukutake Publishing Company, Ltd.,Japan, encouraged and supported this project. His dedication to the publication of this series contributed immeasurably to its success. In order to present the most comprehensivepicture of American art, the editors of this volume have drawn on the collections of severa} of the M useum's curatorial departments: the Department of Prints and Photographs, the Department of Musical Instruments, the Costume Institute, and most notably, the departments of American and Twentieth Century Art. Since it was established over a century ago, the Metropolitan Museum has been acquiring American art, and its collections are now the most comprehensive and representative to be found anywhere. To accommodate its ever-increasing wealth of American painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, the Museum opened The American Wing in 1924, where, for the first time, American antiques were presented in an orderly, chronological way. The great enthusiasm that greeted this opening was reflected in a renewed interest in American antiques and early houses throughout the l 920s, which has continued unabated ever since. In 1980 an expanded American Wing opened, in order to give an integrated and coherent representation of America's artistic past. American art of this century is collected by the Department of Twentieth Century Art, which was established in 1970. The Museum's involvement in contemporary art, however, goes back almost to its very beginning, with severa! artists among its founding members. In 1906 George A. Hearn, a trustee of the Museum, established a fund in his name for the purchase of art by living American artists; five years later a second fund in the name of his son, Arthur Hoppock Hearn, was established far the same purpose. These funds as well as the Kathryn E. H urd Fund and the Edith Blum Fund far the acquisition of American art continue to be the main sources of departmental purchases. Gifts and bequests have also contributed to' the department's growth. Among the most important was the bequest of Alfred Stieglitz in 1949, which included over faur hundred paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Although the department collects works from all areas of twentieth-century art, its strengths are decidedly American-particularly paintings by The Eight, the modernist works of the Stieglitz circle, and postwar Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painting. In February 1987, the new twentieth-century galleries will open to the public in the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, reflecting the Museum's commitment to the art of this century as well as to that of centuries past. We are grateful to the Museum's curatorial staff for their help in preparing this volume, and especially to Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque of the Department of American Art far his invaluable assistance. In addition to composing the introduction, he spent much time reviewing the photographs and text. Since its founding more than a century ago, the Museum has actively collected American art in every medium. In 1980 its vast collections of earlier American art were reinstalled in a wing of the Museum devoted to the arts of the United States, and in 1987 the new Southwest Wing will house the Museum's significant collection of twentieth-century painting and sculpture. This volume re-creates this excitement of discovery in more than one hundred reproductions of paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs, as well as of furnishings, porcelain, silver, glass, and costumes- all revealing the fine craftsmanship and imagination that characterize American artists from the Colonial Period to the present day."--Page 2 of cover