Book Synopsis

A collection of engaging and highly readable essays from a leading scholar of the social history of American Art.

In these essay, spanning from 1977 to 2023, Alan Wallach explores the art of Thomas Cole, patronage of the Hudson River School, so-called "Luminism," the rise of the American art museum, the historiography of American art, scholarship and the art market, as well as the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Rockwell Kent, Grant Wood, Philip Evergood, and Norman Rockwell. Throughout, Wallach employs a materialist approach to argue against traditional scholarship that considered American art and art institutions in isolation from their social, historical, and ideological contexts.