Linda S. Ferber

An illuminating look at how the Pre-Raphaelite movement was embraced by a group of vanguard American artists Bringing together insights from a distinguished group of scholars, this beautiful book analyzes the history and historiography of the American Pre-Raphaelites, and how the movement made its way from England to America. Led by Thomas Charles Farrer—an English expatriate and acolyte of the hugely influential English critic John Ruskin—the American Pre-Raphaelite artists followed Ruskin’s dictum to depict nature close up and with great fidelity. Many members of the group (including Farrer, who served in the Union army during the American Civil War) were also abolitionists, and several created works with a rich political subtext. Featuring the work of artists such as Fidelia Bridges, Henry and Thomas Charles Farrer, Charles Herbert Moore, Henry Roderick Newman, and William Trost Richards, this generously illustrated volume is filled with insightful essays that explore the influence of Ruskin on the American artists, the role of watercolor and photography in their work, symbolism and veiled references to the Civil War, and much more. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, WashingtonExhibition Schedule:National Gallery of Art, Washington (04/14/19–07/21/19)

This colourful volume presents over 50 of the best American marine paintings and artefacts from the New-York Historical Society's impressive maritime art collection. The works range in date from 1750 to 1940, and include paintings by Thomas Birch, John Frederick Kensett and Charlton T. Chapman, and objects such as scrimshaws and navigational instruments. An essay by curator Linda S. Ferber places the works within their wider historical and cultural narrative. The works are arranged in nine thematic sections, covering a range of subjects, including the Anglo-Dutch tradition in American marine art; the War of 1812 with its great sea battles and heroes; romantic and idealised visions of the sea; the merchant marine and maritime trade; views of the Hudson River and the great Port of New York; Gilded Age nostalgia for the great age of sail, with its clipper ships and majestic wind-jammers; and maritime art and crafts.

Making American Taste: Narrative Art for a New Democracy is a landmark publication focusing on American narrative art from 1825 to 1870. A significant contribution to our understanding of taste and collecting during this period, it reasseses themes including the rural and the domestic, as well as a broad range of historical, literary and religious subject matter. American art at this time was dominated by powerful arguments about what constituted true art: should it be for the many, or the educated few, and should specifically American art forms and styles be favoured over more traditional, academic, European traditions. Making American Taste looks at these issues through the work of both well-known artists, like Benjamin West, Asher B. Durand and Eastman Johnson, and less familiar names such as Daniel Huntington, Henry Peters Gray and Louis Lang.