Picture America website

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, through a partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities, is offering an exhibition of 40 reproductions of significant American art (including painting, fine crafts, sculpture, photography and architecture) that showcase the United States’ artistic heritage and offer unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.  The Picturing America exhibit uses art as a tool for the study of America - the cultural, political, and historical threads woven into our nation’s fabric over time.

Picturing America's images span several centuries and feature artists ranging from early American Indian artisans to painters Mary Cassatt and Thomas Hart Benton; to photographers Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, to architects Frank Lloyd Wright and William Van Alen.  While these images are not intended to encapsulate the whole of American history or its art, they are a cohesive sampler of significant works that serves as a starting point for learning about both.

Collectively, the 40 masterpieces in Picturing America, used in conjunction with a Teachers Resource Book, and a Picturing America website especially created to provide further resources and information regarding the art, the artists and the times depicted by the exhibit, enhance the teaching and understanding of America’s past for students around the world studying America.

For additional information on the exhibit, go to http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/.