What is America?: School Tour

Throughout time, artists have been inspired by that which is familiar to them, portraying people through portraiture, depicting places as landscape scenes, and telling stories through narrative. This tour examines how artists have used their skills to describe the people, places, and events that have shaped the American experience and made history.

This resource has been designed to help social studies teachers and students in grades 4-12 use the art in NBMAA’s collection as a primary resource to guide active inquiry and student investigation into state and local history as a window into larger themes of United States history. It has been presented in six sections.

1.Identity and the Many Faces of America

2.A Sense of Place and the American Scene

3.Production and Work

4.Regional and National Identity

5.Civil War

6.September 11, 2001

Works

1. Identity and the Many Faces of America

John Smibert, Benjamin Colman, 1739

Charles Willson Peale, New England Merchant, 1763

Ralph Earl, Gentleman with Attendant, c. 1785-88

Titus Kaphar, Jaavon and the Unknown Gentleman, 2011

George Catlin, Mew-Hew-She-Kaw, The White Cloud, Chief of the Ioways, 1816-1872

Robert Henri, The Imaginative Boy (Nelson), 1915

Dawoud Bey, Laneisha II, 1996

Lalla Essaydi, Converging Territories #12, 2003

Radcliffe Bailey, Transatlantic, 2003

2. A Sense of Place and the American Scene

Thomas Cole, The Clove, Catskills, c.1826

Asher B. Durand, Sunday Morning, 1860

Julian Alden Weir, Landscape, 1894

William Glackens, Washington Square, Winter, 1910

Gifford Beal, Elevated, Columbus Avenue, New York, 1916

Georgia O’Keeffe, East River from the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel, 1928

3. Production and Work

Frederic Edwin Church, West Rock, 1849

Rockwell Kent, Toilers of the Sea, 1907

Paul Sample, Norris Dam, 1936

Beatrice Cuming, Welders at Electric Boat Company, 1944

4. Regional and National Identity

Thomas Hart Benton, The Arts of Life in America, 1912

Arts of the West, Arts of the South, Arts of the City

5. Civil War

Winslow Homer, Skirmish in the Wilderness, 1864

Winslow Homer, Thanksgiving in Camp, 1862

Jo Davidson, Bust of Abraham Lincoln, 1952

Kara Walker, Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), Exodus of the Confederate Soldiers from Atlanta and Buzzard’s Roost Pass, 2005

6. September 11, 2001

Graydon Parrish, The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001, 2002-2006