A critical shift took place in contemporary American art in the late 1950s. Long dominated by Abstract Expressionism, the field took a new turn as two major alternatives appeared on the scene: Assemblage Art and Post-Painterly Abstraction. Together, these new styles redirected the course of American art. Circa 1958: Breaking Ground in American Art explores this decisive moment in art history by gathering--for the first time ever--62 works by 57 artists working during this brief but important period. Based on the exhibition of the same name organized by the Ackland Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this volume presents essays on the artists and their work by exhibition curator and Art in America corresponding editor Roni Feinstein. With an introductory essay by Ackland Director Emily Kass, Circa 1958 features insight on groundbreaking, challenging, and significant works--some rarely before exhibited--by dozens of American artists that helped forge a new era in contemporary American art.

Circa 1958: Breaking Ground in American Art

Arts & Photography

Feinstein, Roni

History & Criticism

Ackland Art Museum

Written to accompany an exhibition of prints from the John P. Eckblad collection of industrial imagery, At the Heart of Progress explores the way that artists have looked at the world that was created by heavy industry over more than two centuries. An interlocking triad--the mining of coal, the production of iron and steel, and the development of steam power--formed the basis of modern industrial civilization, explains curator Timothy Riggs. This transformation of the world is presented in a wide variety of images: documentary views, advertising and political posters, and works of art by artists including Camille Pissarro, Joseph Pennell, and C. R. W. Nevinson. The volume offers a detailed discussion of twenty-nine key prints and traces the growth and transformation of heavy industry in Britain, France, and America. At the Heart of Progress shows how artists confronted the new industrial structures of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and then focuses on the artistic representation of the industrial environment and the portrayal of the worker in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the industrial landscape engulfed whole tracts of countryside and a new society of industrial laborers developed.

At the Heart of Progress: Coal, Iron, and Steam since 1750 (The John P. Eckblad Collection)

Riggs, Timothy

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Ketav: Flesh and word in Israeli art

Bolas, Gerald D.

The spirit of place: Art, environment, community

Barbara C. Matilsky

From the molecular to the galactic: The art of Max Ernst and Alfonso Ossorio

Dallow, Jessica

Collection with a voice of postwar painting - large, intense paintings

Space, Abstraction and Freedom: Twentieth-Century Art from the Collection of Mary an

Millard, Charles (curator)

Five Artists, Five Faiths: Spirituality in Contemporary Art

Five Artists, Five Faiths: Spirituality in Contemporary Art

With funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Ackland Art Museum welcomed more than thirty professionals--museum directors, curators, educators, scholars, and faith leaders from across America--into a multiyear conversation about how museums might create a common ground for the exploration of art and faith. With candor, Amanda Millay Hughes and Carolyn H. Wood open a window on the inner workings of a museum as it grappled with questions of meaning in the presentation of works of art with sacred content. The text includes more than 80 full color illustrations, essays, and presentations by scholars and museum professionals, as well as practical advice for educators and others interested in teaching and learning about world religions.

A Place for Meaning: Art, Faith, and Museum Culture

Hughes, Amanda M.

Wood, Carolyn H.

Museum Catalog. Saddle-stitched Softcover.

Fortune Smiles: The Tyche Foundation Gift

GURGANUS, Allan

Nisbet, Peter

kass, emily

Works of art collected by more than sixty alumni of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are featured in this fully illustrated exhibition catalogue. European and American paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, and photographs move from the late 19th century through major movements and many of the major issues in modern and contemporary art.

Carolina Collects 150 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art From Alumni Collections

Peter Nisbet

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Books by Ackland Art Museum