First exhibited at the Stuyvesant Hall in New York in 1851, Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware captured the imagination of many Americans searching for national symbols in a time of sectionalism and disunity. Despite Leutze’s aspirations, the exhibition became an opportunity for critics of history painting to stake their positions. As suggested by the book’s title, Leutze’s epic painting is a touchstone in the evolution of American history painting. It represents a triumphant climax of the American adoption of the Grand Manner, inherited from eighteenth-century English painting, and portends its seemingly inevitable demise. From the painting’s gargantuan size, which fitted it only for a grand, public setting, to its focus on an already deified public hero, Leutze’s painting presumed a cultural as well as a political consensus—a consensus that proved illusory at best. Emanuel Leutze was arguably the most prominent American history painter of his time, and Jochen Wierich argues that Leutze’s work became the locus of contemporary debates surrounding the nature of history painting and its future.

American art history is a remarkably young, but rapidly growing, discipline. Membership in the Association of Historians of American Art, founded in 1979, now totals nearly 600. As a result of this growth, geographical and cultural borders no longer contain the field. American art history has become “internationalized,” represented by scholars and exhibitions around the globe. While this international transmission and exchange of ideas will certainly prove to be valuable, it has been left largely unexamined. Internationalizing the History of American Art begins a critical examination of this exchange, showing how it has become part of the maturation of American art history. In this volume, a distinguished group of scholars considers the shaping and dissemination of the history of American art domestically and internationally, past and present, theoretically and practically, from a variety of intellectual positions and experiences. To do so, they draw on a literature that, collectively, constitutes a bibliography for the future of the field. Three sections—“American Art and Art History,” “Display and Exposition,” and “Post-1945 Investments”—provide the structure in which the contributors examine the existing narrative framework for the history of American art. This examination indicates a direction for the field and a future historiography that is shaped by international dialogue.

American art history is a remarkably young, but rapidly growing, discipline. Membership in the Association of Historians of American Art, founded in 1979, now totals nearly 600. As a result of this growth, geographical and cultural borders no longer contain the field. American art history has become "internationalized," represented by scholars and exhibitions around the globe. While this international transmission and exchange of ideas will certainly prove to be valuable, it has been left largely unexamined. Internationalizing the History of American Art begins a critical examination of this exchange, showing how it has become part of the maturation of American art history.

In this volume, a distinguished group of scholars considers the shaping and dissemination of the history of American art domestically and internationally, past and present, theoretically and practically, from a variety of intellectual positions and experiences. To do so, they draw on a literature that, collectively, constitutes a bibliography for the future of the field. Three sections--"American Art and Art History," "Display and Exposition," and "Post-1945 Investments"--provide the structure in which the contributors examine the existing narrative framework for the history of American art. This examination indicates a direction for the field and a future historiography that is shaped by international dialogue.