Pennsylvania Impressionism

Doylestown, PA / Philadelphia, PA: James A. Michener Art Museum / University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Hardbound. New, in original shrinkwrap. Ochre cloth boards, color illustrated dust jacket. xxii, 340 pp., 198 color plates, many additional illustrations. "American impressionism was a movement that was largely rooted in the American soil. Artists often spurned the cities, living and working in the numerous art colonies that sprang up in rural areas throughout the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the best known of these colonies was born in 1898 on the banks of the Delaware River north of Philadelphia, centered in the picturesque village of New Hope, Bucks County. Known as the Pennsylvania impressionists, this group of artists played a dominant role in the American art world of the teens and twenties. Their work was celebrated for its freedom from European influence, and was praised by the noted painter and critic Guy Pene du Bois as "our first truly national expression." "Pennsylvania impressionist paintings are now widely collected, and numerous works in private hands are shown here, as are selections from the holdings of the James A. Michener Art Museum, which has the most extensive public collection. The book is lavishly illustrated with 369 color reproductions, and includes biographies of eighty-four artists, many never before published. The history of the Bucks County art colony is explored by Brian H. Peterson, who also suggests new ways of understanding the art and artists who made their home in the area. Sylvia Yount eloquently weaves together the historic foundations of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and its impact on the Pennsylvania impressionists. Noted art historian William H. Gerdts provides a comprehensive study of the art colony movement and its roots, and includes a comprehensive bibliography on that bygone era."--BOOK JACKET.