Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's growing collection offers a superb overview of American art from the colonial era to the present day. Its quality, range and depth rival that of the best museums in the country. Holdings include art historical icons such as Asher Brown Durand's 'Kindred Spirits' (1849), George Wesley Bellows' 'Excavation at Night' (1908) and Norman Rockwell's 'Rosie the Riveter' (1943). The collection features portraits by such diverse artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent and Andy Warhol; landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Hart Benton and Georgia O Keeffe; and narrative scenes by Benjamin West, Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington and Andrew Wyeth. The first publication to document the new museum's increasingly deep and diverse collection of American paintings and unique works of art on paper, 'Celebrating the American Spirit: Masterworks from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art' offers full-page colour plates and succinct, insightful texts by noted American art scholars.
These works figure prominently in Crystal Bridges' inaugural installation, which is devoted to displaying the institution's permanent collection and promised gifts. The book also features a brief illustrated essay providing an introduction to the museum's burgeoning sculpture collection and an interview with founder Alice Walton, conducted by the esteemed American art historian John Wilmerding.