Painting American: The Rise of American Artists, Paris 1867-New York 1948

In the 19th century, American artists had to travel to France for validation; by the mid 20th century, the center of the art world had shifted to the United States. How did this happen? The French author of Sartre: A Life, Annie Cohen-Solal traces this shift in the balance of aesthetic power in the sparsely illustrated volume Painting American. Little more than a rehash of the relevant portions of French and American art history, it will not appeal to specialists looking for major new findings or novel interpretations. But it may be just the ticket for anyone curious about what the sober ranks of 19th-century American artists were learning in the heady world of Parisian art or the motives of American philanthropists who brought European art to the U.S. Particularly welcome is the unusual attention paid to developments in American art outside New York. --Cathy Curtis