Credits and Acknowledgments

As with previous collection catalogs produced by the National Gallery of Art, American Paintings, 1900–1945 has involved many years of intensive work by many people. Its history, in fact, began at the turn of the new millennium, when Robert Torchia, having served as the lead author for American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II, agreed to begin researching the Gallery’s collection of early 20th-century American paintings. We are grateful to Dr. Torchia for his meticulous scholarship and for his sustained dedication to this complex project.

The multifaceted nature of early 20th-century American painting has traditionally been reflected at the Gallery in the curatorial division between the department of American paintings and the department of modern art, the former generally responsible for figurative and representational works by artists like George Bellows and Edward Hopper and the latter having jurisdiction over more abstract paintings by artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Arthur Dove. The publication of American Paintings, 1900–1945 benefitted from the strong working relationship established between the departments of American and modern paintings by Franklin Kelly, now the Gallery’s chief curator and deputy director, and Harry Cooper, curator of modern art. That spirit of collaboration has also extended to the department of photographs headed by Sarah Greenough and to the department of modern prints and drawings, formerly headed by Ruth Fine and now led by Judith Brodie. The numerous contributions of our curatorial colleagues to the field of American modernism informs this online edition at all levels. We are profoundly thankful to them for so generously sharing their expertise.

An important recent development in the history of the Gallery’s collection of American paintings—the acquisition of major works from the Corcoran Gallery of Art—is also reflected in this catalog. Eight entries from the Corcoran’s 2011 scholarly catalog edited by Sarah Cash, Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945, have been adapted for publication here. We thank Sarah Cash, Adam Greenhalgh, Dorothy Moss, and Jennifer Wingate for presenting their research in this new context. We also wish to thank Dare Hartwell, Lance Mayer, Gay Myers, and Elizabeth Steele for their conservation records on the Corcoran objects, which served as the basis for those objects’ technical summaries.

The Gallery’s publishing office thoughtfully guided this project through its unique course and the transition from print to online publishing. It is hard to imagine a more experienced or capable staff. Many thanks to Judy Metro, editor in chief, Chris Vogel, deputy publisher, Wendy Schleicher, design manager, John Long, print and digital production associate, and Katie Brennan, program assistant. A very special thanks to Lisa Shea, project editor, who not only edited the catalog but kept everything on track and calmly and ably directed the catalog to the finish line. We are also grateful to the former senior editors responsible for the initial phases of the catalog: Mary Yakush, Karen Sagstetter, and, especially, Sally Bourrie.

Thank you to Nancy Yeide and Anne Halpern, assisted at times by Jason Di Resta, for attending to provenance, exhibition history, and bibliography issues in the midst of their day-to-day responsibilities for maintaining the Gallery’s curatorial records. Senior conservator of paintings Michael Swicklik was responsible for examining the paintings and for the lucid technical summaries. Barbara Wood expeditiously gathered the image permissions. In the department of American and British paintings, we are indebted to curatorial assistant Zoë Samels and her predecessor, Nicole Stribling, as well as to Ellen Layman for assisting with myriad research questions, compiling artist biographies, and coordinating our efforts with other Gallery divisions. The newest member of our curatorial team, Sarah Cash, brought her unparalleled knowledge of the Corcoran Collection to bear on the project. Thank you to Arthur Wheelock and Jennifer Henel for their advice and, in conjunction with our publishing office, helping to pioneer a model for NGA Online Editions with their award-winning Dutch paintings volume that we were happy to follow. We look forward to availing ourselves of the dynamic capabilities of online publishing as the American paintings collection continues to evolve. Finally, we would like to collectively thank the many librarians, archivists, scholars, curators, collectors, art dealers, and museum professionals whose devotion to the field of American art makes projects such as these possible.

Nancy Anderson and Charles Brock

September 29, 2016 

National Gallery of Art

Earl A. Powell III, director

Franklin Kelly, deputy director and chief curator

Curatorial, American Paintings 

Nancy Anderson, Charles Brock, Sarah Cash, Zoë Samels, Ellen Layman

Curatorial, Modern Art

Harry Cooper, Molly Donovan, Kerry Rose, Paige Rozanski

Publishing Office

Lisa Shea, Judy Metro, Chris Vogel, Wendy Schleicher, John Long, Katie Brennan

Conservation

Merv Richard, Jay Krueger, Michael Swicklik, Douglas Lachance

Curatorial Records and Files

Nancy Yeide, Anne Halpern, Jennifer Henel, Jason Di Resta

Imaging Services

Alan Newman, Peter Dueker, Lorene Emerson, Barbara Wood, Greg Williams, Katherine Mayo, Peter Huestis

Library

Neal Turtell, Lamia Doumato, Yuri Long, Jacqueline Protka

Secretary and General Counsel

Nancy Breuer, Elizabeth Croog, Julian Saenz, Isabelle Raval, Carolyn Greene McKee

Technology Solutions

Linda Stone, Laszlo Zeke, Katherine Blackwell, Charles Alers, David Beaudet, Andrey Forostovsky, Vadim Gulyakin, Vladimir Morozov, Cindy Peng, Yuriy Rastorguev, Svetlana Reznikov-Velkovsky