John White Alexander and the Construction of National Identity

"John White Alexander and the Construction of National Identity: Cosmopolitan American Art, 1880-1915 positions the work of American artist John White Alexander at the intersection of the shifting discourse of nationalism in American art at the turn of the twentieth century. The book addresses the dynamic search for and definition of national identity through a careful examination of the institutional complexes in which Alexander worked and exhibited. The extensive primary critical literature that forms a fundamental armature of the book provides a contemporary narrative on the evolving topography of American art's national profile between 1880 and 1915, and reveals the impact of national assumptions of cultural production. Moreover, it provides a broad picture of the historical, political, cultural, and aesthetic context in which Alexander's works in particular, and those of his cosmopolitan colleagues in general, were produced and discussed."--Jacket.