Shows examples of Davis's stripe, micro, symbolist, and silhouette paintings, and discusses the American artist's life and career

Gene Davis, a memorial exhibition

Jacquelyn Days Serwer

National Museum of American Art

American Art

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

When we think of New England, we envision village greens surrounded by neat, white-framed houses; tall elms and church spires; country stores; Yankee farmers; sailing ships; rocky coastlines; brilliant autumn foliage. Despite the fact that there is a New England of cities, factories, and an increasingly diverse ethnic population, it is the Old New England that Americans have always treasured, finding in it a kind of "national memory bank". This beautiful book examines images of Old New England created between 1865 and 1945, demonstrating how these images encoded the values of age and tradition to a nation facing complex cultural issues during the period.The book begins with an introduction by Dona Brown and Stephen Nissenbaum that provides a historical background to the era. Then William Truettner, Roger Stein, and Bruce Robertson turn more directly to New England images and discuss a variety of artistic efforts to historicize the past. They show that paintings of the Revolutionary War, of harvest scenes, or of genteel old New England towns served, for example, to provide reassurance to urban dwellers after the Civil War, to counteract the effects of modernism, and to encourage a sense of community during the Depression. They also examine paintings of coastal New England and favorite haunts of tourists and artists such as Winslow Homer and Marsden Hartley. The many images of Old New England, say the authors, represent shared cultural beliefs -- ways of seeing the present in terms of a mythical past.

Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory

Book by Klett, Mark, Foresta, Merry

Capital View: A New Panorama of Washington, D.C.

Klett, Mark

Foresta, Merry

History

Spanish Harlem, New York's oldest barrio, is home to some 120,000 people, half of whom are of Latino origin. To live in Spanish Harlem is to confront some of the city's worst problems: crime, drug abuse, AIDS, chronic unemployment. But Spanish Harlem also serves as the "capital of Hispanic America." The mecca where Puerto Ricans first settled is now shared with African Americans and new arrivals from Latin America. Each year, former residents of Spanish Harlem return for "Old Timer's Day," a celebration of the flamboyance and the gritty self-reliance of the neighborhood. Joseph Rodriguez's photographs bring the reader inside Spanish Harlem - from the Good Friday procession, to the Dominoe social club, to the dance called the Bomba Plena, to vibrant stoop life in the neighborhood. Spanish Harlem remembers its past even as a new future is forged. On a street corner, an ice cream cart sign reads: "Puerto Rico is my enchanted. Here is where I stay."

Spanish Harlem (American Scene, 3)

Rodriguez, Joseph

Yunqué, Edgardo Vega

Photography & Video

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Books by National Museum of American Art