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 explores 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, have 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 begins 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 contrast 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, transition into mid-century abstract works by artists such as Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, and Jackson Pollock. The selection offers 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, is 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); and the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale (November 6, 2008–March 8, 2009).

For more information contact Director of Exhibitions Department Kathleen Flynn at 212.988.7700 ext. 212 or kflynn@afaweb.org. You may also contact Theo Walther, Curatorial Assistant, at ext. 216 or twalther@afaweb.org.