2003 John White Alexander and the construction of national identity

John White Alexander and the Construction of National Identity: Cosmopolitan American Art, 1880-1915 positions the work of American artist John White Alexander at the intersection of the shifting discourse of nationalism in American art at the turn of the twentieth century. The book addresses the dynamic search for and definition of national identity through a careful examination of the institutional complexes in which Alexander worked and exhibited. The extensive primary critical literature that forms a fundamental armature of the book, provides a contemporary narrative about the evolving topography of American art's national profile between 1880 and 1915, and reveals the impact of national assumptions on cultural production. Moreover, it forms the basis of a broad and comprehensive picture of the historical, political, cultural, and aesthetic context in which Alexander's works in particular, and those of his cosmopolitan colleagues in general, were produced and discussed.

Limited preview - 2003 - 133 pages - Art

"It was largely under the direction of Charles Parsons that the art department at Harper's grew from an adjunct to a vital department of the company, with a dozen or more artists on staff at any given time. In addition to having hired such distinguished illustrators as Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer, Parsons, an artist himself, was quick to recognize the skill of such young artists as Edwin Austin Abbey, Alexander, Frank Dumond, Arthur Burdett Frost, Granville Perkins, Howard Pyle, and Charles Stanley Reinhart, all of whom facilitated the rapid advance in the art of pictorial illustrations at Harper's in the 1870s. The subsequent eminence of many of these artists attests, in part, to Parsons' foresight and timely role in the encouragement and stimulation of their careers."