Text by Rachael Thomas. Afterword by Enrique Juncosa.

Provides a social history of early America by assembling and categorizing illustrations and descriptions of folk art, from needlework, to weathervanes, to pottery

Provides an introduction to American crafts from colonial times to the present by showing examples of items used in play, the kitchen, and school from the collection of the Museum of Folk Art

New York-based painter WilliamSteiger's focus is on fundamental representation of the American landscape. His subjects are industrial and recognizable--grain towers, cable cars, trains, and amusement park attractions. His graphic, distinctly schematized work is grounded in the traditions of classic American landscape painting and the machine-age Precisionism of figures like Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth.

Juxtaposes color reproductions of samplers, quilts, and needle-pictures with excerpts from the diaries and journals of eighteenthand nineteenth-century women

"Throughout his career, the acclaimed artist Saul Steinberg created a series of unique, wondrous books. Far richer than simple catalogs or collections of drawings, these carefully arranged works formed a kind of continuous visual autobiography--a record,in drawings both simple and detailed, comic and beautiful, of an inimitable mind's encounter with the world. The Labyrinth, first published in 1960 and long out of print, may be the best of these. Here is Steinberg, as he put it at the time, "discoveringand inventing a great variety of events: Illusion, talks, music, women, cats, dogs, birds, the cube, the crocodile, the museum, Moscow and Samarkand (winter, 1956), other Eastern countries, America, motels, baseball, horse racing, bullfights, art, frozenmusic, words, geometry, heroes, harpies, etc." This edition, featuring all the original art along with new editorial material, will allow readers to discover (and invent) Steinberg's world all over again"--

This book examines advances in architecture, design, and painting in a region widely recognized for its contribution to the Arts and Crafts and Prairie School movements. It features the work of many well-known American artists, including the architects Cass Gilbert, Harvey Ellis, Frank Lloyd Wright, Purcell and Elmslie, ceramicist and Arts and Crafts philosopher Ernest Batchelder, and the painters Homer Dodge Martin and Alexander Fournier. The six essays also focus on the ceramic and metalwork production of the Handicraft Guild of Minneapolis, the Craftshouse of John Bradstreet, and American Indian art and artifacts created both for native and white use at the time. Alan Lathrop discusses Minnesota architecture by combining his knowledge of architectural practitioners of the time with an awareness of international stylistic trends, particularly the tradition of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in this first overview of the state's architecture of the period ever published. Michael Conforti and Jennifer Komar link the development of retailing in the late nineteenth century to the interior design practice and Arts and Crafts production of John Bradstreet. Thomas O'Sullivan provides a study of Robert Koehler, one of the region's most respected painters, while he reviews the work of over two dozen of the state's other painters working at the time. The special communal nature of Minnesota's artistic life is emphasized in Marcia Anderson's contribution. Her study of the Handicraft Guild of Minneapolis presents years of archival research on the Guild which she presents in the context of the international Arts and Crafts movement. Mark Hammons provides the first monograph ever published on the architectural partnership of Purcell and Elmslie, the most commissioned architects of the Prairie School after Frank Lloyd Wright. Hammons analyzes the team-centered working process of the firm and relates their creative process and formal vocabulary to the contemporary metaphysical discourse that was the foundation of their architectural philosophy. Louise Lincoln and Paulette Molin study the nature of relationships between whites and the Chippewa and Dakota Indians in their discussion of native material culture. Lincoln and Molin decode a complex, nuanced cultural interchange embodying both traditional and assimilationist trends. Their essay is the first in-depth examination of the range of American Indian art from this region; one that considers both objects crafted for native use and those produced for the tourist market.

*1890-1915. 1994.

The Smithsonian Institution is America's largest, most important, and most beloved repository for the objects that define our common heritage. Now Under Secretary for Art, History, and Culture Richard Kurin, aided by a team of top Smithsonian curators and scholars, has assembled a literary exhibition of 101 objects from across the Smithsonian's museums that together offer a marvelous new perspective on the history of the United States. Ranging from the earliest years of the pre-Columbian continent to the digital age, and from the American Revolution to Vietnam, each entry pairs the fascinating history surrounding each object with the story of its creation or discovery and the place it has come to occupy in our national memory. Kurin sheds remarkable new light on objects we think we know well, from Lincoln's hat to Dorothy's ruby slippers and Julia Child's kitchen, including the often astonishing tales of how each made its way into the collections of the Smithsonian. Other objects will be eye-opening new discoveries for many, but no less evocative of the most poignant and important moments of the American experience. Some objects, such as Harriet Tubman's hymnal, Sitting Bull's ledger, Cesar Chavez's union jacket, and the Enola Gay bomber, tell difficult stories from the nation's history, and inspire controversies when exhibited at the Smithsonian. Others, from George Washington's sword to the space shuttle Discovery, celebrate the richness and vitality of the American spirit. In Kurin's hands, each object comes to vivid life, providing a tactile connection to American history. Beautifully designed and illustrated with color photographs throughout, The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects is a rich and fascinating journey through America's collective memory, and a beautiful object in its own right.