Over the course of the one hundred years from the 1850s to the 1950s, American art and culture came of age, evolving from the provincial to the international and moving from literal depictions of the particular to abstract interpretations of universal ideals. Coming of Age explored the complex and extended process of maturation that took place throughout this formative century of American art.

Guest Curators William Agee, Professor of Art History at Hunter College, New York, and Susan Faxon, Associate Director and Curator at the Addison Gallery, focused on the key movements during a period in which American art matured and took its place in the international arena. Drawn from the Addison Gallery’s renowned collection, the exhibition began with mid-nineteenth-century American landscapes, followed by late nineteenth-century works such as marine paintings by Winslow Homer, portraits by Thomas Eakins, genre paintings by Eastman Johnson, and landscapes by John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler. Turn-of-the-century works by American Impressionists such as Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast contrasted with Ashcan paintings by artists such as Robert Henri and John Sloan. Twentieth-century modernist masterpieces by Stuart Davis, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley, among others, transitioned into mid-century abstract works by artists such as Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, and Jackson Pollock. The selection offered a comprehensive look at the major developments in a period of one hundred years marked by the rise of modernity and by a dramatic change in the physical and social landscape. The accompanying catalogue published by the AFA in association with Yale University Press, featuring essays by the curators, was a historic opportunity for scholars of American art to interpret the Addison’s rich collection in depth.

Exhibition Itinerary: Addison Gallery of American Art (September 9, 2006–January 7, 2007); Meadows Museum of Art (November 30, 2007–February 24, 2008); Dulwich Picture Gallery (March 1–June 8, 2008); Peggy Guggenheim Collection (June 27–October 12, 2008); the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale (November 6, 2008–March 23, 2009); Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (May 21–September 7, 2009).