America
The collection of American art at Vanderbilt is one of the strongest areas of the university’s holdings and provides a broad portrait of nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century stylistic movements. The Americans represented in the collection include some of the most influential and well-known artists of the past two centuries.
In nineteenth-century painting, Vanderbilt’s collection includes oil paintings created by Childe Hassam, the leader of the American Impressionist movement; Jasper Cropsey; and George Inness, the Barbizon-influenced landscape painter. Early twentieth-century works in the collection include a painting by William Merritt Chase, a famed teacher as well as artist, whose students included Charles Demuth, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Charles Sheeler. The collection also includes The Picnic, Vermont, by Milton Avery, who perpetuated the post-Fauvist style of Matisse in America.
While the university owns a relatively small number of American paintings, the extensive holdings in nineteenth- and twentieth-century works on paper assist in illustrating the diversity of artistic movements that define American art. Significant painters and printmakers such as Mary Cassatt and James McNeill Whistler executed works that fully exploited and expanded the medium of printmaking. Modern masters as Regionalists John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood; Dadaist Man Ray; Abstract Expressionists Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, and Lee Krasner; Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein; Minimalist Ad Reinhardt; as well as others, serve to present a unique view of the diversity and inventiveness of American artistic production.
In recent years, the Gallery has added work by a number of contemporary artists including Enrique Chagoya, Martin Puryear, Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson, Kara Waller, Lesley Dill, Louise Bourgeois, Jim Dine, Joseph Kosth, Carrie Mae Weems, Ron Adams, Creighton Michael, and Andy Warhol, among others.
American Painting
Milton Avery (American, 1893–1965)
The Picnic, Vermont, 1940
Oil on canvas
28 1/8″ x 36 1/4″
Gift of Roy R. Neuberger, The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery
1979.0188P
Isabel Bishop (American, 1902–1988)
Recess #1, 1975
Oil on board
30″ x 44″
Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund Purchase
1978.034
William Merritt Chase (American, 1849–1916)
Still Life with Fish, date unknown
Oil on canvas
17 1/2″ x 21 1/2″
The Sullivan Collection, The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery
1979.0203P
Jasper Cropsey (American, 1823–1900)
The Old Homestead, Wyoming Valley, 1865
Oil on canvas
13″ x 18″
Gift of Sam I. and Ellen C. Yarnell
1981.007
Sam Gilliam (American, b. 1933)
Space Drawing, 2000
Acrylic on birchwood
12″ x 25-1/2″ x 3-1/2″
Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase
2002.008
Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)
The Skyscraper Window, 1934
Oil on canvas
59 1/4″ x 47 1/4″
The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery
1979.0228P
David Daniel Johnson (American, 1827–1908)
Lake George, date unknown
Oil on canvas
19 1/2″ x 24 1/2″
The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery
1979.0232P
American Sculpture
John Chamberlain (American, 1927–2011)
Maz, 1960
Painted steel
48″ x 40″ x 36″
The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery
1979.0667P
John Rogers (American, 1829–1904)
Checkers Up At the Farm, 1875
Plaster with paint
32 3/4″ x 16 1/2″ x 12 3/4″
Gift of Marc and Betty Hollender
2004.028
American Graphic Arts
Ron Adams (American, b. 1934)
Blackburn, 2002
Lithograph
25″ x 35″
Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase
2002.024
Romare Bearden (American, 1911-1988)
Girl in the Garden from American Portfolio: A portfolio of six lithographs in color by: Lester Johnson, Alice Neel, Romare Bearden, Henry Pearson, Sharon Sutton, Will Barnet, 1979
Lithograph on Arches paper
28-1/2″ x 20″
Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase
2005.001c
Deborah Dancy (American, b. 1949)
Nameless, 2001
Intaglio and collograph in color from a paperboard matrix
19-15/16″ x 16″
Janice D. Forsythe Memorial Fund Purchase
2002.002
Man Ray (American, 1890–1976)
The Pear (or La Poire d'Eric Satie), date unknown
Serigraph
18″ x 11 5/8″
Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund
1973.004
Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925–2008)
Swim /ROCI USA (Wax Fire Works), 1990
Acrylic, fire wax, variegated brass leaf on stainless steel
72 3/4″ x 96 3/4″
Gift of Donald and Ruth Saff
2002.026
Lorna Simpson (American, b. 1960)
Backdrops Circa 1940s, 1998
Serigraph on two felt panels
26 3/8″ x 17 1/8″
Dr. and Mrs. E. William Ewers Gift for Fine Arts Fund Purchase
1999.143
Kara Walker (American, b. 1969)
The Emancipation Approximation (Scene 5), 1999-2000
Serigraph
44″ x 43″
Louise Bullard Wallace Fund Purchase
2001.006
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1950)
Not Manet’s Type, 2001
Photolithograph
40″ x 20″
Janice D. Forsythe Memorial Fund Purchase
2002.001
American Photography
Ross Bleckner (American, b. 1949)
Untitled, from America: Now + Here, a portfolio, 2009
Digital chromogenic print
24″ x 20″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA ’99
2013.035k
Chuck Close (American, b. 1940)
Al Gore, from America: Now + Here, a portfolio, 2009
Digital chromogenic print
18-3/4″ x 16″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA '99
2013.035c
Eric Fischl (American, b. 1948)
The Gang, from America: Now + Here, a portfolio, 2009
Digital chromogenic print
15-3/4″ x 23-1/2″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA '99
2013.035g
Lyle Ashton Harris (American, b. 1965)
Blow Up II (Armory), from America: Now + Here, a portfolio
Digital chromogenic print
24″ x 20″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA '99
2013.035m
Vik Muniz (American, b. 1961)
American Flag, from America: Now + Here, a portfolio, 2009
Digital chromogenic print
12 1/8″ x 21″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA '99
2013.035a
Andres Serrano (American, b. 1950)
America from America: Now + Here, a portfolio, 2003
Digital chromogenic print
24″ x 20″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA '99
2013.035h
Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Diagram of Doom for Steichen the Photographer, 1929
Photogravure
9-9/16″ x 7-5/8″
Vanderbilt Art Association Acquisition Fund Purchase
1979.0096
Bill Viola (American, b. 1951)
Ocean Without a Shore, from America: Now + Here, a portfolio, 2007
Digital chromogenic print
24″ x 20″
Gift of Melissa and Scott Tannen, BA '99
2013.035e
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Dolly Parton, 1985
Polacolor ER
4-1/4″ x 3-3/8″
Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
2008.009