Art of the gold rush / Janice T. Driesbach, Harvey L. Jones, and Katherine Church Holland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Driesbach, Janice Tolhurst.

Contributor:

Jones, Harvey, 1935-

Holland, Katherine Church.

Oakland Museum.

Crocker Art Museum.

National Museum of American Art (U.S.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art, American--California--19th century--Exhibitions.

Art, American.

Gold mines and mining in art.

California--Gold discoveries--Pictorial works--Exhibitions.

California.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (167 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, c1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The California Gold Rush captured the get-rich dreams of people around the world more completely than almost any event in American history. This catalog, published in celebration of the sesquicentennial of the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, shows the vitality of the arts in the Golden State during the latter nineteenth century and documents the dramatic impact of the Gold Rush on the American imagination. Among the throngs of gold-seekers in California were artists, many self-taught, others formally trained, and their arrival produced an outpouring of artistic works that provide insights into Gold Rush events, personages, and attitudes. The best-known painting of the Gold Rush era, C.C. Nahl's Sunday Morning in the Mines (1872), was created nearly two decades after gold fever had subsided. By then the Gold Rush's mythic qualities were well established, and new allegories-particularly the American belief in the rewards of hard work and enterprise-can be seen on Nahl's canvas. Other works added to the image of California as a destination for ambitious dreamers, an image that prevails to this day. In bringing together a range of art and archival material such as artists' diaries and contemporary newspaper articles, The Art of the Gold Rush broadens our understanding of American culture during a memorable period in the nation's history.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Lenders to the Exhibition

Introduction

First in the Field

Scenes of Mining Life

Portrait Painter to the Elite

The Hessian Party

Souvenirs of the Mother Lode

Mining the Picturesque

In the Wake of the Gold Rush

Sentiment and Nostalgia

Biographies of the Artists

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Artists Represented in the Exhibition

Index

Notes:

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, Calif., Jan. 24-May 31, 1998; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, Calif., June 20-Sept. 13, 1998; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Dec. 30, 1998- Mar. 7, 1999.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613587350

9781280492129

1280492120

9780520935150

0520935152

9780585176482

0585176485

OCLC:

45727649