By William C. Agee and Susan Faxon
Published in 2006 by the AFA in association with Yale University Press
136 pages, 85 illus. (78 in color), 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.
Paper • ISBN 1-885444-33-8 • $35.00 (AFA/members only)
Cloth • ISBN 0-300-11523-7 • $50.00 (Yale University Press)

From the 1850s to the 1950s, American art and culture progressed from provincial status to international prominence, and American art transitioned from figurative depictions of the particular to abstract interpretations of universal ideals. This fully illustrated book chronicles this complex century of maturation through an exquisite selection of paintings from the extraordinary collection of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. Susan Faxon, Associate Director and Curator of Art Before 1950 at the Addison Gallery of American Art, guides the reader through the second half of the nineteenth century with an essay on the formation of an American artistic identity. This is followed by an essay written by William C. Agee, Evelyn Kranes Kossak Professor of Art History at Hunter College, on the themes that emerged from and contributed to the increasing dominance of American art from the early to mid-twentieth century.