The Civil War and American Art

Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900). Our Banner in the Sky (detail), 1861.

Today is your last chance to see the major loan exhibition “The Civil War and American Art.” The works of art on display trace the trajectory of the war’s conflict and express the intense emotions that it provoked.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street)
New York, NY 10028
Phone: 212-535-7710 

May 27–September 2, 2013

Albert Bierstadt | Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War | 1862 | The Century Association, New York, NY

 

This major loan exhibition considers how American artists responded to the Civil War and its aftermath. Landscapes and genre scenes—more than traditional history paintings—captured the war's impact on the American psyche. The works of art on display trace the trajectory of the conflict and express the intense emotions that it provoked: unease as war became inevitable, optimism that a single battle might end the struggle, growing realization that fighting would be prolonged, enthusiasm and worries alike surrounding emancipation, and concerns about how to reunify the nation after a period of grievous division. The exhibition proposes significant new readings of many familiar masterworks—some sixty paintings and eighteen photographs created between 1852 and 1877—including outstanding landscapes by Frederic E. Church and Sanford R. Gifford, paintings of life on the battlefront and the home front by Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson, and photographs by Timothy H. O'Sullivan and George N. Barnard. The exhibition at the Metropolitan coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863).