Acknowledgments

Valance, Hélène; Todd, Jane M.

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Acknowledgments

Hélène Valance, Jane M. Todd (Translator)

Nocturne: Night in American Art, 1890–1917

Acknowledgments

Author

Hélène Valance, Jane M. Todd (Translator)

PublisherYale University Press

PublisherTerra Foundation for American Art

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00087.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16982

Acknowledgments

Writing this book has been far from a solitary venture, and over the long course of its maturation I have received the help of many more people than I would be able to list here. I am grateful, first, to François Brunet and Michael Leja for their solid and constant support from the very first months of my doctoral research.

I have been time and again surprised by the generosity of American art scholars; from eminent professors to young scholars, many have taken the time to read and offer insightful criticisms on various stages of this manuscript. I owe much to Cynthia Mills and Bill Truettner, with whom I broached the topic of nocturne paintings more than ten years ago. I enjoyed discussing night and artificial lighting with Hollis Clayson, Sandy Isenstadt, and William Sharpe, and I hope to continue our conversations beyond this book. Sarah Burns, Martin Berger, Alan Braddock, and Alexander Nemerov provided great suggestions, as did my co-fellows at the Smithsonian American Art Museum: Anna Aranbindan-Kesson, Lacey Baradel, Sarah Beetham, Maggie Cao, Liam Considine, Seth Feman, Mazie Harris, Sara Levavy, Emily Liebert, Erin Pauwels, Alex Taylor, and Tatsiana Zhurauliova. Our weekly writing workshops remain among the most exciting and satisfying intellectual exchanges I ever experienced. The Terra Foundation for American Art summer residency in Giverny was the occasion of lively discussions with a community of young colleagues, among whom I particularly thank Ellery Foutch and Alison J. Carr for their astute reading of important passages of this book. I am tremendously thankful for Sophie Cras’s admirable way of being at once so kind and so smart in her suggestions on vast parts of the manuscript.

I was impressed by the availability and warmth of the many museum curators I met during my research, and I am grateful for the conversations I had with Nancy Anderson at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Anna Marley at the Pennsylvania Academy for the Fine Arts, Kathleen Foster at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Joyce Schiller at the Delaware Art Museum, Kenneth Myers at the Detroit Institute of Art, Scott Shields at the Crocker Art Museum, and Harvey Jones at the Oakland Museum of California. The Terra Foundation for American Art has provided several generous grants and fellowships which, rather than simply make my research possible, turned it into an exceptionally comfortable venture. Above all, though, I am grateful to Veerle Thielemans, Francesca Rose, and Ewa Bobrowska at the Terra Foundation’s offices in Paris. They have always offered helpful and benevolent advice as they watched this project grow through the years.

I feel very lucky for the friends I have made in the American art community, but I am just as thankful for the support of friends and family for whom this project could appear a bit exotic. I owe special thanks to my parents for patiently letting me wander so far away from them, and to Rémi Gauthier, who has followed me long enough to become an American art connoisseur malgré lui.

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Book details

BOOKNocturne: Night in American Art, 1890–1917

Hélène Valance, Jane M. Todd (Translator)

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00087

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16980

The turn of the 20th century witnessed a surge in the creation and popularity of nocturnes and night landscapes in American art. In this original and thought-provoking book, Hélène Valance investigates why artists and viewers of the era were so captivated by the night. Nocturne examines works by artists such as James McNeill Whistler, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, Edward Steichen, and Henry Ossawa Tanner through the lens of the scientific developments and social issues that dominated the period. Valance argues that the success of the genre is connected to the resonance between the night and the many forces that affected the era, including technological advances that expanded the realm of the visible, such as electric lighting and photography; Jim Crow–era race relations; America's closing frontier and imperialism abroad; and growing anxiety about identity and social values amid rapid urbanization. This absorbing study features 150 illustrations encompassing paintings, photographs, prints, scientific illustration, advertising, and popular media to explore the predilection for night imagery as a sign of the times.

Author

Hélène Valance, Jane M. Todd (Translator)

PublisherYale University Press

Terra Foundation for American Art

Print publication date June 2018 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300223996

EISBN 9780300245943

Illustrations 152

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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