Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery

COLLECTIONS

American Art at Vanderbilt

American Painting | American Sculpture | American Graphic Arts

The study of American artists, whose significance was once over-shadowed by their European counterparts, has developed into a dynamic and popular branch of art history. The collection of American art at Vanderbilt remains one of the strongest areas of the university's holdings and provides a broad portrait of nineteenth- and twentieth-century stylistic movements. Those Americans represented in the collection include some of the most influential and well-known artists of the past two centuries.

In nineteenth-century painting, Vanderbilt's collection includes oil paintings created by Childe Hassam, the leader of the American Impressionist movement; Jasper Cropsey; and George Inness, the Barbizon-influenced landscape painter. Early twentieth-century works in the collection include a painting by William Merritt Chase, considered to be the most important art teacher of his generation and whose students included Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Charles Sheeler. The collection also includes The Picnic, Vermont, by Milton Avery, who alone perpetuated the post-Fauvist style of Matisse in America.

While the university owns a relatively small number of American paintings, the extensive holdings in nineteenth- and twentieth-century works on paper assist in illustrating the diversity of artistic movements that define American art. Significant painters and printmakers such as Mary Cassatt and James McNeill Whistler, both included in the collection, executed works that fully exploited and expanded the medium of printmaking. Furthermore, such modern masters as Regionalists John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood; Dadaist Man Ray; Abstract Expressionists Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, and Lee Krasner; Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein; Minimalist Ad Reinhardt; as well as others, serve to present a unique view of the diversity and inventiveness of American artistic production.

In recent years, the Gallery has added work by a number of contemporary artists including Enrique Chagoya, Martin Puryear, Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson, Kara Waller, Lesley Dill, Louise Bourgeois, Jim Dine, Joseph Kosth, and Andy Warhol, among others.

American Painting

American Painting | American Sculpture | American Graphic Arts

[Click on images below to enlarge view]

	Samuel L. Dunson, Jr. American, b. 1970 Brownstone All-Stars, 1997 Oil on canvas 36" x 24" Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase 1997.154
	Isabel Bishop, American, 1902–1988 Recess #1, 1975 Oil on board Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund Purchase 1978.034
	Studies for Recess #1
	Isabel Bishop, American, 1902–1988 Study for Recess #1, 1975 Ink on paper Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund Purchase 1978.033
	Isabel Bishop, American, 1902–1988 School Girls (Study for Recess #1), 1975 Aquatint Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund Purchase 1978.035
	Milton Avery, American, 1893–1965 The Picnic, Vermont, 1940 Oil on canvas Gift of Roy R. Neuberger, The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery 1979.0188P
	Childe Hassam (1859–1935) The Skyscraper Window, 1934 Oil on canvas 59 1/4" x 47 1/4" The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery 1979.0228P
	Irving Wiles, American, 1861–1948 The Pianist, 1889 Oil on panel The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery 1979.0280P
	William Merritt Chase American (1849–1916) Still Life with Fish, date unknown Oil on canvas 17 1/2" x 21 1/2" The Sullivan Collection, The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery 1979.0203P
	David Daniel Johnson American (1827–1908) Lake George, date unknown Oil on canvas 19 1/2" x 24 1/2" The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery 1979.0232P
	Jasper Cropsey American (1823–1900) The Old Homestead, Wyoming Valley, 1865 Oil on canvas 13" x 18" Gift of Sam I. and Ellen C. Yarnell 1981.007
	Jane Stuart American (1812–1888) Scene from a Novel or a Subject from Literature, 1834 Oil on canvas 36" x 28" Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund 1988.014

American Sculpture

American Painting | American Sculpture | American Graphic Arts

[Click on images below to enlarge view]

	John Rogers American (1829–1904) Checkers Up At the Farm, 1875 Plaster with paint 32 3/4" x 16 1/2" x 12 3/4" Gift of Marc and Betty Hollender 2004.028
	John Chamberlain American, b. 1927 Maz, 1960 Painted steel 48" x 40" x 36" The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery 1979.0667P

American Graphic Arts

American Painting | American Sculpture | American Graphic Arts

[Click on images below to enlarge view]

	James McNeill Whistler, American, 1834–1903 Seymour Standing Under a Tree, 1859 Etching Gift of Austin B. Chinn, ’69, in memory of his mother, Mrs. Joseph W. Chinn III 2006.015
	Reginald Marsh, American, 1898–1954 Girl Walking (Elevated), 1945 Lithograph Dr. and Mrs. E. Williams Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase 2000.003
	Grant Wood American (1892–1942) Family Doctor, 1941 Lithograph 10" x 12" The Anna C. Hoyt Collection, Vanderbilt University 1957.044
	Martin Lewis, American, 1883–1962 Night in New York, 1932 Etching on laid paper Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund Purchase 1980.010
	Thomas Nason American (1889–1971) Connecticut Pastoral, 1936 Wood engraving 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase 2004.034
	Man Ray American (1890–1976) The Pear (or La Poire d'Eric Satie), date unknown Serigraph 18" x 11 5/8" Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund 1973.004
	Peter Milton American, b. 1930 From, The Jolly Corner, 1971 A limited edition portfolio of the story of the same title by Henry James (1843–1916) Etching with aquatint on wove paper 9 5/8" x 14 5/8" Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase 2000.120
	Robert Rauschenberg American (1925–2008) Swim /ROCI USA (Wax Fire Works), 1990 Acrylic, fire wax, variegated brass leaf on stainless steel 72 3/4" x 96 3/4" Gift of Donald and Ruth Saff 2002.026
	Lesley Dill, American, b. 1950 Front, from A Word Made Flesh (With verse from Emily Dickinson), 1994 Lithograph/intaglio on Mulberry paper, hand sewn onto Arches Buff 30" x 22" Janice D. Forsythe Memorial Fund Purchase, with additional funds provided by the Vanderbilt Art Association Fund 1996.176 d
	Lorna Simpson American, b. 1960 Backdrops Circa 1940s, 1998 Serigraph on two felt panels 26 3/8" x 17 1/8" Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase 1999.143
	Rosalyn Richards American, b. 1947 Lattice, 2002 Etching on Chine Collé 20 7/8" x 14 13/16" Janice D. Forsythe Memorial Fund Purchase 2004.040
	Rosalyn Richards American, b. 1947 Sand and Smoke, 2002 Etching on Chine Collé 21 3/8" x 14 15/16" Janice D. Forsythe Memorial Fund Purchase 2004.041
	Enrique Chagoya American, b. 1953 Anthropologist with Noodles, from The Enlightened Savage, 2002 Digital print on paper mounted to water filled "c" enamel lined can 4" x 2 1/2" Fine Arts Gallery Acquisition Fund 2002.016
	Enrique Chagoya American, b. 1953 La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Prodigious Life of Death), 2003 Lithograph on Chine Collé 17 3/8" x 14" Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase 2003.052
	Jay Bolotin American, b. 1949 From The Jackleg Testament, 2003 A limited edition portfolio of 40 prints and a film of the same title 19 1/2" x 26" Woodcut Made possible by a gift from the Lifeworks Foundation, Nashville 2006.008