Harvard University. Art Museums

Fogg Art Museum

Virginia Anderson

Theodore E. Stebbins

Though the eminent nineteenth-century British critic and watercolorist John Ruskin never set foot in the United States, his writings were widely read here. American artists eagerly took up his call for the meticulous depiction of nature and the preservation through copying of some of the finest works of civilization before time or misguided restoration overtook them. His influence was disseminated by the legendary Charles Eliot Norton, the nation's first professor of art history, who taught at Harvard from 1874 to 1898, and by Norton's protege Charles Herbert Moore. The Last Ruskinians is the catalogue of an exhibition that traces Ruskin's impact on these teachers, their students, and many other artists and collectors. The works represented here include floral studies, landscapes, architectural details, views of Venice, and copies after ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art. Most are in watercolor, Ruskin's favorite medium. Included are ten works by Ruskin himself, all drawn from the Harvard collections, and twice as many by his friend Moore, a Harvard drawing instructor and the Fogg Art Museum's first director.

Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Herbert Moore, and Their Circle

The Last Ruskinians

Janet L. Comey

Martin Johnson Heade

Karen E. Quinn

Martin Johnson Heade was one of the most significant American painters of the nineteenth century, creator of portraits, history and genre pictures, still lifes, ornithological studies, landscapes, and marines, and his own unique orchid and hummingbird compositions. This book brings a perspective to Heade and his works, presenting him as one of the most original and productive painters of his time. Theodore Stebbins builds on his acclaimed 1975 study of Heade, drawing on several newly discovered collections of Heade's letters and the painter's own Brazilian journal. Stebbins tells of Heade's training and early career as an itinerant portraitist and discusses his move to New York, where, under the influence of Frederic E. Church, he began painting landscapes and seascapes. He examines Heade's relationships with patrons and dealers, writers and scientists, and he sheds new light on Heade’s trips to Brazil, to the Central American tropics, and to London. And he describes Heade's move to Florida in 1883, which marked not his retirement but a final period of creativity that lasted until his death in 1904. The book includes not only an examination of Heade's life and works but also reproductions of all his 620 known paintings, including nearly 250 that have been discovered since 1975.

A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné

The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade

John Caldwell

Carol Troyen

The works of masters and those of lesser-known artists are included in this catalogue and history of American drawing from the watercolors of Jacques Le Moyne to the present-day draftsmanship of Andrew Wyeth

A History of Works on Paper from Colonial Times to the Present

American Master Drawings and Watercolors

Melissa Renn

This volume features nearly 500 paintings, watercolors, pastels, and miniatures from Harvard University's storied, yet little-known, collection of American art. These works, many unpublished, are drawn from the Harvard Art Museums, the University Portrait Collection, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and other entities, and date from the early colonial years to the mid-19th century. Highlights include a rare group of 17th-century portraits, along with important paintings by Robert Feke, John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and Washington Allston, in addition to works depicting western and Native American subjects by Alexandre de Batz, Henry Inman, and Alfred Jacob Miller, among others. Each work is accompanied by scholarly commentary that draws on extensive new research, as well as a complete exhibition and reference history. An introduction by Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. describes the history of the collection. Lavishly illustrated in color, this compendium is a testament to the nation's oldest collection of American art, and an essential resource for scholars and collectors alike.

Volume 1: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born Before 1826

American Paintings at Harvard

Theodore E. Stebbins

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