Bill Bryson

#1

Five great American museums have pooled their outstanding works to create an unequaled survey of art in the United States from prehistory to the present day, a glorious treasury of American creativity. It follows many of the strands that have been woven into the pattern of American society, its cultural richness springing from the diversity of its citizenry. Here are masterpieces of painting, sculpture, photography, crafts, and the decorative arts from The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; The Saint Louis Art Museum; and The Toledo Museum of Art. Here is the finest of Native American pottery, basketry, and beadwork. Here is silver by Paul Revere II, a Baltimore album quilt, glass by Tiffany Studios, and furniture by Frank Lloyd Wright. Here are paintings by George Caleb Bingham, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Romare Bearden, Andrew Wyeth, Jackson Pollock, Ellsworth Kelly, and Andy Warhol. Here are sculptures by Frederic Remington, Paul Manship, David Smith, and Alexander Calder. Here are photographs by Timothy O'Sullivan, Edward Steichen, Gertrude Kasebier, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis W. Hine, James Van Der Zee, Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Robert Frank, and Diane Arbus. Here, in 162 full-color plates, is the wonderful panorama of American art in a richly produced presentation certain to appeal to all lovers of art and Americana. Its eight sections are introduced by brief essays that provide a succinct view of the social and artistic context for the works of art. Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art was written by twenty-seven authorities from the curatorial staffs of the participating museums, each of which is hosting the two-year touring exhibition of the same works.