McKee Library

American Artist Appreciation Month

McKee Library celebrates American artists from every walk of life and corner of the nation this July 2022.  Learn more using these resources. 

Research Guide

View the McKee Library art research guides below: 

Art History & Time Periods

Art Movements

Streaming Media

Take a look at these documentaries to further explore American art. 

The Whitney Museum Of American Art - New York

1000 Masterpieces from the Great Museums of the World is one of the most successful TV series about art. The original, with improved image quality, takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of art. Comprehensively illustrated and compellingly presented – the well-known authors of five short art surveys provide a deeper insight into the masterpieces of painting. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York accommodates one of the most important collections of American Art from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Exhibition on Screen: The Artist's Garden, American Impressionism

Taking its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet, the American impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative power-house. It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France, this mesmerizing film is a feast for the eyes.

American Art in the 1960s

During this critical decade in American life, artists built on the styles of the 1950s. An explosion of artistic energy produced Pop Art, Minimalism, color-field painting, and hard-edged abstraction. Sculptors and painters on both coasts explored new methods and new subject matter. American Art in the Sixties examines the key figures of that decade including Rauschenberg and Johns, two crucial transitional figures between Abstract Expressionism and the sensibilities of the new decade. The art of that time mirrors the optimism and the affluence, and the technology and the vulgarity of those boom years.

Books

Click on the books below for more information about American art and artists.