“The Civil War and American Art” to Open at the Met Museum, May 27

By: Kelsey Denette May. 16, 2013

Exhibition Dates: May 27-September 2, 2013
Exhibition Location: Robert Lehman Wing, court level and first floor
Press Preview: Monday, May 20, 10:00 a.m.-noon

Because the American Civil War threatened both the founding principles and the viability of the republic, the nation's entire population was deeply affected by the fact of the conflict and its outcome. The major loan exhibition The Civil War and American Art, which will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 27, will consider how American artists responded to the Civil War and its aftermath. Landscapes and genre scenes-more than traditional history paintings-captured the war's impact on the American psyche. The exhibition traces the trajectory of the conflict: unease as war became inevitable, optimism that a single battle might end the struggle, growing realization that fighting would be prolonged, enthusiasm and worries alike surrounding emancipation, and concerns about how to reunify the nation after a period of grievous division. The exhibition proposes significant new readings of many familiar masterworks-some 60 paintings and 18 photographs created between 1852 and 1877-including landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church and Sanford Robinson Gifford, paintings of life on the battlefront and the home front by Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson, and photographs by Timothy H. O'Sullivan and George N. Barnard.

The exhibition is made possible by an anonymous foundation.

Additional support is provided by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and the Enterprise Holdings Endowment.

The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

It was organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from the Anschutz Foundation; Ludmila and Conrad Cafritz; Christie's; Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins; Tania and Tom Evans; Norma Lee and Morton Funger; Dorothy Tapper Goldman; Raymond J. and Margaret Horowitz Endowment; Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts; Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation; Joffa and Bill Kerr; Thelma and Melvin Lenkin; Henry Luce Foundation; Paula and Peter Lunder; Margery and Edgar Masinter; Barbro and Bernard Osher; Walter and Lucille Rubin Foundation; Patricia Rubin and Ted Slavin; and Holly and Nick Ruffin. The C.F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum's traveling exhibition program, "Treasures to Go."

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, commented: "Generally, it has fallen to history museums to organize exhibitions about wars. But the works of art in this exhibition-which include some of the greatest examples of their era-were not intended to document the war. Rather, they chronicle how genre painters, landscape painters, and photographers responded to the coming of the war, the fact of the war, and its aftermath, and how the war changed American art."

The presentation at the Metropolitan coincides with the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), the turning point in the war.

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