Published on the occasion of Maine's bicentennial, the book considers more than 200 major artworks of American art from the Farnsworth Art Museum's impressive holdings and details how the state has figured prominently in the development of American art. The volume includes artists as diverse as Andrew Wyeth, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Francesco Clemente, Robert Rauschenberg, and Alex Katz, among others. Through their work, a fascinating depiction of the state--and indeed of the development of American art--emerges. In addition to the more than 200 artworks, the volume will feature two historic sites: the Farnsworth Homestead (the National Register of Historic Places home of founder Lucy Copeland Farnsworth) and the National Historic Landmark Olson House, inspiration for some 300 works by Andrew Wyeth, including
Christina's World.

The book also considers the founder Lucy Copeland Farnsworth's distinctive vision to create a museum, library, and historic house, placing her among the few and still under-recognized women who created museums throughout the United States in the early twentieth century.