AMERICAN ART: 1750-1800 Towards Independence ~ COLOR!

American Art
1750-1800
Towards Independence 

edited by
Charles F. Montgomery
and Patricia E. Kane

.

Published by the Yale University Art Gallery, copyright New Haven CT, 1976 Edition. Having 320 indexed pages, illustrated with 44 color, and 280 black/white art reproductions. Prepared for bicentennial exhibition held at the Yale University Art Gallery April 3-May 23, 1976, and at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London July 15 to September 26, 1976. Presents an overview of the arts and crafts in American during that crucial half century when the colonies were moving towards independence, both politically and culturally. Bound in color illustrated 8.5 by 11 inch stiff paper wraps, showing moderate exterior wear mostly to edges, otherwise binding still internally strong, contents clean and bright, and overall in good condition.

(text taken from preface...)

by Roy Strong, Director,
Victoria and Albert Museum

The collaboration of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Yale - University Art Gallery is for me a particularly happy event, evoking in concrete form a long, personal relationship with the Mellon Centres for British Art in London and New Haven. Yale has been and is a major centre for British scholarship in America, embracing the whole spectrum but with a special emphasis on the literature and fine arts of eighteenth-century England. It is therefore appropriate that the Victoria and Albert Museum's celebration of the American Bicentennial, organized jointly with the Yale University Art Gallery, should take the form of a panorama of the visual arts during the reign of America's last king, George III. Compared with the American passion for eighteenth century art, British knowledge and interest in American art has always been minimal. The exhibition therefore presents us with the unique opportunity of filling this gap in our knowledge by seeing gathered together the very best of the American achievement in the fine and applied arts of that time.

The London end of the Exhibition originated as long ago as 1970 with an approach to my predecessor, Sir John Pope-Hennessy, from the Hon. Treasurer of The Pilgrims, a society for the promotion of Anglo-American friendship under the patronage of The Queen and The President of the United States. Holding an exhibition to mark the bicentenary of the American Declaration of Independence was discussed, and an initial Steering Committee was set up under the Chairmanship of Lord Harlech and an Executive Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Astor of Hever to explore the possibilities. Through the mediation of John Walker, former Director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, it was subsequently agreed to join forces with Yale University Art Gallery. In this way, we have benefited from the expertise of a first-rate team of American art historians, headed by Charles Montgomery, Jules David Prown and Theodore Stebbins, who as a steering committee have planned the exhibition and have selected the exhibits....
.

.