Art History 360 - SEM: STUDIES IN AMERICAN ART

Topics course. This museum-based seminar examines the remarkable formation of Smith's collection of American art under its first president, L. Clarke Seelye, with the assistance of painter Dwight Tryon, longtime professor of art at the college. We plumb the college archives and museum files to investigate Seelye's tastes and acquisition habits and explore the friendship network of Tryon to determine his role in guiding the purchase process. (The college has just received a gift of a large collection of Tryon letters previously unknown to researchers, as well as a promised gift of the papers of artist Mary Rogers Williams, Tryon's longtime assistant.) In the course of the semester, we come to a fine-grained understanding of (1) the cultural and social milieu of the northeastern United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and (2) the art institutions of the time, such as the radical Society of American Artists, from which Seelye purchased a number of paintings. Students engage in intensive study of works of American art in the museum, as well as key paintings that left the collection in a massive sale of American art in 1947. This latter episode affords an opportunity to consider the ethics of museum deaccessioning.

Topic: Colleting American Art at Smith: The Seelye-Tryon Era Instructor permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores