The Princeton University Art Museum' s collection of American drawings and watercolors is impressive in both scope and quality, providing a comprehensive overview of the nation' s artistic traditions. This lavishly illustrated book highlights seventy-seven master drawings and watercolors chosen from the museum' s extensive collection. The selections, which range from the eighteenth century to the present, are by such eminent American artists as Benjamin West, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Andrew Wyeth, Georgia O' Keeffe, Lee Bontecou, and Tom Wesselmann. A group of outstanding works by Hudson River School and Ash Can artists also distinguishes the collection.

Each of the selected drawings and watercolors is reproduced in full color and is accompanied by an in-depth catalogue entry. The book also features an introduction by John Wilmerding describing Princeton' s history of collecting American art, as well as an essay by Kathleen A. Foster on the historiography of American drawings and watercolors. A useful checklist of the Museum' s entire collection of over 1,300 American drawings and watercolors, selectively illustrated in color, concludes the book.

This beautiful and informative volume clearly demonstrates that the holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum represent an extraordinary resource for students, scholars, and those with a love of American art and art history.

An illuminating look at how the Pre-Raphaelite movement was embraced by a group of vanguard American artists Bringing together insights from a distinguished group of scholars, this beautiful book analyzes the history and historiography of the American Pre-Raphaelites, and how the movement made its way from England to America. Led by Thomas Charles Farrer-an English expatriate and acolyte of the hugely influential English critic John Ruskin-the American Pre-Raphaelite artists followed Ruskin's dictum to depict nature close up and with great fidelity. Many members of the group (including Farrer, who served in the Union army during the American Civil War) were also abolitionists, and several created works with a rich political subtext. Featuring the work of artists such as Fidelia Bridges, Henry and Thomas Charles Farrer, Charles Herbert Moore, Henry Roderick Newman, and William Trost Richards, this generously illustrated volume is filled with insightful essays that explore the influence of Ruskin on the American artists, the role of watercolor and photography in their work, symbolism and veiled references to the Civil War, and much more.