Geographic Tour of American Art History: DVD and VHS videos

Geographic Tour of American Art History

with an emphasis on representational art

DVD and VHS videos

A Certain Light 15-minute 1991 videotape of the story of the Lyme Art Colony and the Florence Griswold Museum. Engaging narrative with paintings, antique photos, and period music.

American Heritage is a two-part 30 minute Wilton program that showcases American history through vivid images of past and present. An engaging overview for American art history and social studies students, particularly at the middle school level.

EARLY AMERICAN CRAFTS A comprehensive look at American folk arts from the cradle to the grave. Beautiful examples of household crafts, glass, silver, painting, scrimshaw, and gravestones complete with the ?how and why? of each craft.
AMERICAN WESTWARD MOVEMENT A stunning panorama of American expansion as seen through the eyes of artists who were there: Catlin, Bingham, Bierstadt, and Remington just to name a few. This colorful and historic program includes instructional maps, etchings, paintings, and photography.

American Vision, The is a 36 minute 1986 National gallery of Art video which is "A broad view of American painting from pre-Revolutionary days to the beginning of the twentieth century."

American Vision: The History of American Art and Architecture produced by Planet 24 in association with BBC Television; a Time Inc.-BBC co-production; produced in association with Thirteen/WNET. eight videocassettes. 60 minutes each. PBS Video, 1996. "In this eight-part series, Robert Hughes, the renowned art critic for Time magazine, takes viewers on an exuberant guided tour through 200 years of our visual culture, vividly illustrating how art conveys deep messages about who America is as a nation. Available through the Sullivan Video Library at The Speed Art Museum which holds a sizable collection of art-related videos available to educators at no charge.

The Republic of Virtue "Demonstrates how the new republic adopts and transforms the classical style to serve a new, democratic ideal. Examples range from heroic statues of George Washington to the architecture of Thomas Jefferson."
The Promised Land "Explores ways that religion had a fundamental impact on the shaping of American culture. From the Spanish missions in New Mexico to the Puritan churches of New England, a new American culture emerges through architecture and portraiture."
The Wilderness and the West "Travels from Yellowstone to the Hudson Valley via works of artists Albert Bierstadt (1830--1902), John James Audubon (1785--1851), Frederic Church (1826--1900), Frederic Remington (1861--1909), and Thomas Cole (1801--1848)."
The Gilded Age "Reveals widely different experiences of the American Dream through images of the Brooklyn Bridge, photographs of the Civil War, portraiture, and impressionist and realist paintings."
A Wave from the Atlantic "Describes the impact of the waves of immigrants in the early-20th century. Follows the development of the socially conscious art circle called the Ashcan School, the historic 1913 Armory Show, and the artists who forged a modernism that is uniquely American"
Streamlines and Breadlines "Compares the mythic images of the 1920s and 30s, as urban as the skyscrapers rising up in New York and as rural as the heartland realized by regionalist painters like Thomas Hart Benton (1889--1975)."
The Empire of Signs "Details how America's power becomes unrivaled in the post-war era, and how artists of the period make an explosive break with the past. Considers the impact of Hiroshima on art, traces the development of abstract expressionism and the life of Jackson Pollock, and explores how artists as different as James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns reacted to the new consumer culture."
The Age of Anxiety" "Explores how American art reflects the upheavals of the last twenty-five years, from the evolution of abstract art to minimalism. The program also considers the spiritual richness of earth works, in which nature is the artist's medium." [2]

Americans in Paris, 30 minute DVD published in 2006. "Paris was the centre of the art world in the nineteenth century and for American artists, its lure was irresistible. They flocked there in their thousands, eager to establish their artistic credentials. As their letters home prove, initial impressions of Paris were overwhelming: the light, the noise, the smells, the contrasts. Theatres, cafés, gardens and boulevards provided rich subject matter for these painters, as did their fellow artists, often portrayed as the elegantly dressed flâneur (dandy), or as the bohemian, studiedly careless in appearance... This fascinating film, much of it shot on location, captures the excitement that Paris conveyed to its American visitors, and provides a vivid sense of what American artists retained of their experience, and brought back with them to America." Text courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Art in Its Soul: Perspectives of an Art Colony, . "This video traces the evolution of the quaint town of Provincetown, on Cape Cod, as a major art colony through oral history, archival footage and works of art. Artists recall the early 1900s when students from around the world came to study here with Charles Hawthorne." 28 minutes (text courtesy Georgia Museum of Art)

Artists of the West is a 56 minute 2000 PBS Home Video. Actor Joseph Campanella narrates a dramatic story of the American West as seen through the eyes of three pre-eminent artists : Charles Russell, Thomas Moran, and Frederic Remington

Dublin Art Colony Collection at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, The 30-minutes. This video, produced and narrated by Paul Tuller, former president of the Dublin Historical Society -- available to libraries throughout New Hampshire -- explains and illustrates in detail the artists and the history of the colony, which flourished around Mount Monadnock in the late 19th century and into the mid 20th century. The video shows many of the wonderful paintings created by this prolific group of 30 artists in the Dublin Colony.

Hudson River and its Painters, The is a 57 minute 1988 video from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Series released by Home Vision Entertainment. The mid-nineteenth century saw the growth of America's first native school of landscape painters, artists inspired by the compelling beauty of the Hudson River Valley, who portrayed this and other romantic wilderness areas with an almost mystical reverence. This 57 minute video explores the life and work of the major artists of what came to be known as the Hudson River School -- Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Kensett, Jasper Cropsey, Worthington Whittredge, Sanford Gifford, and George Inness. Although its members traveled widely, the growth and development of the school were centered around New York City, and its success reflected the ambitions of the youthful American nation. It presents more than 200 paintings, prints and photographs of the period and juxtaposes them with dramatic location photography of the Hudson River area. The Hudson Company in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hudson River and its Painters, The is available through the Sullivan Video Library at The Speed Art Museum which holds a sizable collection of art-related videos available to educators at no charge.

Impressions of California: Currents in Art 1850-1930. The Irvine Museum collaborated in the filming of this KOCE public television documentary video, produced by Paul Bockhorst, consisting of four 1/2 hour television programs totaling 112 minutes. Available through the Irvine Museum.

The Wildling Museum says: "This landmark public television series, produced by KOCE TV Foundation in 1996, documents the story of California art from statehood in 1850 to the beginning of the Depression in 1930. The narration, illustrated by original works of art from many California museums, features interviews with respected art historians, Bill Gerdts, Wanda Corn, Harvey Jones, and Jean Stern among others. Each program lasts 28 minutes.

Part I: Awakening in the North traces the development of art communities in San Francisco and Monterey.

Part II: The Rise of Impressionism in Southern California reviews the coloristic explorations of the "plein air" painters of the early 20th century.

Part III: Early Art in Laguna Beach and San Diego describes the art colonies in these two southern California coastal cities and the unique brand of impressionism practiced by artists William Wendt, Edgar Payne, Anna Hills, Joseph Kleitsch, Maurice Braun and others.

Part IV: Beyond Impressionism, documents the more subjective and expressive styles of "progressive" artists throughout the State who were influenced by Post-Impressionism in the first decades of the 20th century: The Society of the Six in Oakland, Maynard Dixon in SF, Henrietta Shore and Donna Schuster in Los Angeles, among many."

New World Visions: American Art and the Metropolitan Museum. A two-part 1984 series, 58 minutes each, interweaves painting, sculpture, decorative arts and architecture in an exploration of uniquely American art forms. Using the collections of the Museum as a starting point, the programs were shot on location in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and New England. Part 1 covers the years 1650-1820 and Part 2 covers the years 1820-1914. Part I begins in the 17th-century Hart Room of The Metropolitan Museum's American Wing, continues through Colonial times, and ends with the emergence of the Hudson River School around 1820. Part II explores 19th-century landscape and portrait painting in depth, and takes viewers to the Frank Lloyd Wright room at The Metropolitan Museum." A co-production of WNET and the BBC.

Time Captured in Paintings: The Monterey Legacy was released by the Monterey Museum of Art which tells the story of Monterey's art colony, including artists Armin Hansen, E. Charlton Fortune, Henrietta Shore, William Ritschel, Gottardo Piazzoni, Xavier Martinez, and others. Jack Lemmon narrates this 28 minute 1991 presentation by Steve Rosen and Terri DeBono. From the arrival of French painter Gaspard Duche de Vancy in 1786, to the thriving creative community of today, this video demonstrates the wide variety of art inspired by the region.

Sister Wendy's American Collection from PBS outlining her journey to six of America's greatest museums. 6 hrs. on 6 VHS cassettes or 6 hrs. on 3 DVDs

Visions of California: The Story of California Scene Painting, produced by Paul Bockhorst for KOCE Public Television in collaboration with The Irvine Museum, is the 1994 story of California Scene Painting 1925-1950. Bockhorst, working with scores of collectors and dozens of institutions and museums nationwide, has created a three-part series of artistic delight and intellectual insight that features almost 150 works of art. Each part is 28 minutes in length with a total viewing time of 84 minutes. Available through the Irvine Museum.

TFAO does not maintain a lending library of videos or sell videos. Click here for information on how to borrow or purchase copies of VHS videos and DVDs listed in TFAO's Videos -DVD/VHS, an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format

rev. 11/17/08

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