Newportraits
- Author: Newport Art Museum
- SKU: 7149
- ISBN:
- Our Price:
$45.00
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Description:
Newport, Rhode Island, has always been a fabled American city. From 1639 when it was founded by religious dissidents from the Massachusetts Bay Colony until the Revolution, it was one of the five most important commercial centers in the colonies, aided, no doubt, by its unusual policy of religious toleration. Occupied and burned by the British during the war, Newport never regained its commerical importance, but by the end of the nineteenth century it had become the Gilded Age's most galmorous resort community and site of the grandest parties and summer houses of the national Social Register. Though much of the glamour has evaporated, it is still one of the most visited summer resort locations.
In 1992, the Newport Art Museum assembled an exhibition of 223 portraits of Newporters painted over a period of three centuries. It presented not just a gallery of the Newport elite and some of its haute bourgeoisie, but also a showcase of the most famous portraitists and portrait styles throughout United States history. Artists represented in this collection range from the great colonial portraitists Gilbert Stuart, Robert Feke, and John Singleton Copley to such modern figures as Diego Rivera, Larry Rivers and Andy Warhol.
Portraits are portrayed in full glossy color and annotated with a few paragraphs each about the subject (loaded with genealogical gems), and comments on artistic style and trends represented. Entire chapters are devoted to the Brown, Cushing, Pell, Vanderbilt and Morris families. Many other chapters cover gentlemen, ladies, and children of the twentieth century, and much much more. Each portrait is identified with the name of the subject and artist. Published 2000. Hard cover. 344pp.
