Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum by Julie Aronson, Marjorie E. Wieseman – Hardcover: 344 pages; Yale University Press (Apr 10, 2006)

This richly illustrated book presents approximately 180 portrait miniatures selected from the holdings of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the largest and most diverse collection of its kind in North America. The book stresses the continuity of stylistic tradition across Europe and America as well as the vitality of the portrait miniature format through more than four centuries. A detailed catalogue entry, as well as a concise artist biography, appears for each object. Essays examine various aspects of miniature painting, of the depiction of costume in miniatures, and of the allied art of hair work.

American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. I by Nancy Rivard Shaw, Mary C. Black, Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society – Hardcover: 368 pages; Hudson Hills; 1st edition (Nov 15, 1991)

American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. II by Nancy Rivard Shaw, Elizabeth Broun, Gerald Carr, Leigh Culver, Norman Geske, Patricia Hills, Joseph Ketner II, Ellen G. Miles, Angela Miller, Samuel Sachs II (Foreword) – Hardcover: 320 pages; Hudson Hills; 1st edition (Jan 26, 1998)

Frames in The Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Timothy Newbery – Hardcover: 480 pages; Princeton University Press (Sep 24, 2007)

The Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses one of the finest collections of frames in the world. Robert Lehman's interest in picture frames set him apart from other collectors of his era. The collection he bequeathed to the Museum includes nearly four hundred frames, most of them Italian and French and dating from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Although he bought most of these frames to display his paintings and drawings, a number of them could only have been acquired as works of art in their own right.

Selections from The Irvine Museum by Jean Stern – Hardcover; The Irvine Museum; 2nd edition (2009)

A completely updated of the 1992 edition of Selections as teh Irvine Museum has grown and matured significantly in the past seventeen years.

Objects of Desire: Victorian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Judith A. Barter, Ghenete Zelleke, Debra N. Mancoff, Douglas R. Nickel – Paperback: 96 pages; Art Institute of Chicago (Aug 18, 2005)

This volume focuses on a wide range of Victorian-era objects from Britain and the United States in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The following topics are explored: still-life painting in nineteenth-century America; the burgeoning Victorian print market; a fascinating sketchbook used by the English painter Edward Burne-Jones; a spectacular Gothic-style British wine cabinet; and a rare photographic album compiled by an aristocratic English family. Also featured, in a portfolio section, are other highlights from the museum’s Victorian collection, including furniture, paintings, photographs, textiles, and works on paper by such noted artists as Julia Margaret Cameron, William Morris, and John Everett Millais.

Treasures of the National Gallery of Canada by David Franklin – Hardcover: 288 pages; Yale University Press (Oct 11, 2003)

This handsomely produced volume, featuring 128 full-page color illustrations, showcases a wide-ranging selection of the most outstanding works from Canada’s largest art museum. Each of the pieces chosen for inclusion is introduced by a curatorial specialist, who sets it in its historical context and comments on its meaning and its place in the artist’s oeuvre. Pride of place is given to the Gallery’s unparalleled holdings in Canadian art, but European art—paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings—is equally well represented.

American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born Before 1835 by Kevin J. Avery – Hardcover: 444 pages; Metropolitan Museum of Art (Dec 2002)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art began acquiring American drawings in 1880 and has since amassed a spectacular collection of more than 1,400 works in watercolor, pastel, ink, graphite, chalk, and charcoal.

This beautifully produced catalogue, the first volume in a series devoted to the museum's rich holdings, presents works by artists born before 1835, including such great American artists as John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, George Inness, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

British Paintings at the Huntington by Robyn Asleson, Shelley M. Bennett, Melinda McCurdy, Elizabeth Pergam – Hardcover:400 pages; Yale University Press (Nov 1, 2001)

This detailed volume is the first catalog in 65 years of the 168 British paintings at the Huntington Library Art Collection and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA. All the paintings are cataloged with standard information; 123 of them also receive a fuller discussion that includes information about the artist, the painting's provenance, exhibitions at which it was shown, and technical details about its physical condition sometimes with illustrations. This is followed by information about the subject whether portrait or landscape in as full and scholarly a manner as could be desired.

The entries abound with full-scale footnotes. The quality of the photographs throughout is superb, as is the scholarship. Fully and carefully indexed, the work also includes Bennett's well-written and informative essay, "The Formation of Henry E. Huntington's Collection of British Paintings." This is a splendid scholarly achievement not likely to be superseded as well as a beautifully produced volume that is a joy to use. Editor and catalogers are to be congratulated on a book that belongs in most libraries. —Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, CT Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Masterpiece Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston by Theodore E. Stebbins, Peter C. Sutton (Photographer) – Hardcover: 148 pages; Harry N. Abrams (Nov 1, 2000)

Affluent Boston was among the first American cities to establish a museum of fine arts, in 1870. By 1888, an observer was describing the enthusiasm with which self-confident Boston families were buying the works of "those mad outlaws, the Impressionists." Such early acquisitions form the basis of the MFA Boston's superlative collection, which could never be amassed today; the museum owns 38 works by Monet, for example, the largest group of Monets outside Paris.
Masterpiece Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston presents 125 of the museum's finest treasures.

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at The Art Institute of Chicago by James N. Wood – Hardcover: 168 pages; Hudson Hills Press (Apr 15, 2000)

New Britain Museum of American Art: Highlights of the Collection by Laurene Buckley – Hardcover: 192 pages; Prestel Publishing (May 1, 1999)

Since its founding at the turn of the century, the New Britain Museum of American Art has focused on collecting works by American artists. The finest paintings and sculpture from this important collection are featured in full-color reproductions in this illustrated volume. Included are many outstanding paintings by the foremost representatives of American Impressionism such as Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam, and the famous mural series Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton.

Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of Sara Lee Corporation by Richard R. Brettell, Natalie H. Lee – Hardcover: 228 pages; Yale University Press (Aug 11, 1999)

One of the most significant—and least studied—forms of postwar art collecting in the United States has been the corporate collection. This beautiful book documents one of the most important and widely exhibited of these holdings: the collection of Sara Lee Corporation, fifty-two works selected from the personal collection of Sara Lee’s founder, Nathan Cummings.

American Characters by R. W. B. Lewis, Nancy Lewis, National Portrait Gallery – Hardcover: 412 pages; Yale University Press; 1st edition (Jan 1, 1999)

This delightful book brings together 160 famous American figures from Pocahontas to Louis Armstrong, providing both visual and verbal portraits to illuminate their places in American life. The portraiture-paintings, sculptures, photographs, cartoons-and the literary images-eyewitness accounts, memoirs, poems, letters, and biographies-are accompanied by lively and informative commentary by the editors.

National Gallery of Art, Washington by John Walker, Carter Brown – Hardcover: 696 pages; Abradale Press; Revised edition (Sep 1995)

The list of master artists whose work is housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, seems endless. This massive volume contains rich color reproductions of works by Pollock, Brancusi, Cezanne, Picasso, and hundreds of other artists

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings by Kathryn Calley Galitz, Thomas P. Campbell (Foreword) – Hardcover: 544 pages; Rizzoli Electa (Sep 13, 2016) Best Seller

This impressive book’s broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. Lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpieces, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present.

Masterpieces of Painting: J. Paul Getty Museum by Scott Allan, Davide Gasparotto, Peter Björn Kerber, Anne T. Woollett – Hardcover: 144 pages; J. Paul Getty Museum; 1st edition (Aug 20, 2019)

Vibrant full-color illustrations and engaging descriptions of these masterworks reveal their fascinating histories and cultural, social, and religious meanings. Sure to enchant and edify all art lovers, this book is a spellbinding tour through the history of Western painting.

Frames of Reference: Looking at American Art, 1900-1950: Works from the Whitney Museum of American Art by Beth Venn, Adam D. Weinberg, Kennedy Fraser – Hardcover: 224 pages; University of California Press (Jan11, 2000)

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded by visionary patron and artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), is home to one of the finest collections of American art in the country. Frames of Reference features eminent contributors from the fields of art, literature, and contemporary culture who together provide a wide-ranging introduction to American art as well as to the Whitney Museum's unparalleled collection.

Forging a Modern Identity: Masters of American Painting Born after 1847: American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. III by James W. Tottis – Hardcover: 304 pages; Giles 1st edition (May 12, 2005)

This long-awaited publication, the third in a series of titles co-published with the Detroit Institute of Arts, completes the study of American paintings in the museum's outstanding collection with 129 colour images of works by artist born after 1847.

The Wrightsman Pictures by Everett Fahy, Pierre Rosenberg (Introduction), Elizabeth Barker, George R. Goldner, Colta Ives, Sabine Rewald, Perrin Stein, Gary Tinterow – Hardcover: 452 pages; Metropolitan Museum of Art (Oct 24, 2005)

This lavish catalogue presents 150 European paintings, pastels, and drawings from the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century that have been given to the Metropolitan Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman or are still held in Mrs. Wrightsman’s private collection.

Highlights of the book include masterpieces by Vermeer, El Greco, Rubens, Van Dyck, Georges de La Tour, Jacques-Louis David, and Caspar David Friedrich as well as numerous paintings by the eighteenth-century Venetian artists Canaletto, Guardi, and the Tiepolos, father and son, plus a dozen remarkable portrait drawings by Ingres. Each work is reproduced in color and is accompanied by a short essay.

National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection by John Oliver Hand – Hardcover: 492 pages; Harry N. Abrams (Sep 1, 2004)

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1941, was founded by Andrew Mellon, whose collection of 121 old-master paintings provided the foundation for what has rapidly become a world-class museum with extensive holdings representing seven centuries of European and American art.

Impressionism An Intimate View: Small French Paintings In The National Gallery Of Art by Philip Conisbee (Foreword), Florence E. Coman – Hardcover: 80 pages; Giles (Oct 30, 2004)

The author shows how the painting of earlier realist and landscape artists such as Corot, Rousseau, Boudin and Manet was absorbed into the small-scale impressionist works of an emerging generation of aspiring artists that included Monet, Renoir, Morisot and Pissarro. This highlights the second important feature of impressionism – its central role within the development of later nineteenth-century French and European modern art.

Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery by National Portrait Gallery – Hardcover: 304 pages; National Portrait Gallery (Jul 2002)

Conventional wisdom suggests that portraiture lost its relevance in the twentieth century, that it was too tied to representation and biographical narrative to compete. Why then, the vitality of the the National Portrait Gallery's twentieth-century images in "Eye Contact?" Far from confirming a moribund tradition, these pictures are variously adventurous, assertive, witty, monumental, or confrontational, and all reflect modern aesthetic concerns.

Fifty graphic masterpieces representing the American artistic tradition from the 1880s to the 1980s are showcased in this volume, including the work of such renowned artists as Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. Life portraits of well-known Americans, from politicians and inventors to writers, artists, and musicians are represented. Theodore Roosevelt, W.C. Fields, Alice B. Toklas, Igor Stravinsky, Stokely Carmichael, Truman Capote, and Robert F. Kennedy number among them.

Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney by Malcolm Warner, Robyn Asleson – Paperback: 272 pages; Yale Center for British Art (Oct 1, 2001)

Outside Britain itself, the richest holdings of British art are found in American collections. This extraordinary presentation of some 85 works pays tribute to this strength of American collecting, while offering a fresh and engaging account of the history of painting in Britain from the sixteenth century to the present. The selection is drawn from collections from around the United States, both public and private, and includes spectacular pictures from the Yale Center for British Art and the Huntington Art Collections in California—the two leading collections of British art in America.

A Brush with History: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery by National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution, Carolyn Kinder, Ellen G. Miles – Paperback: 216 pages; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; 1st edition (Jan 1, 2001)

As the new nation began its journey through history, Charles Willson Peale reasoned that it would be valuable for a republic to have the likenesses of those who had played a prominent part in the struggle for independence.

American Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I by Art Institute of Chicago, Kimberly Rhodes, Seth A. Thayer, Judith A. Barter, Andrew Walker – Hardcover: 356 pages; Hudson Hills; 1st edition (Dec 8, 1998)

This visually stunning publication, which focuses on a wide range of the finest examples of decorative arts created in this country between 1650 and 1920, presents the heart and soul of the American art collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. —Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This Other Eden: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art by Yale Center for British Art, Julia Marciari Alexander, Warner, Malcolm Warner – Hardcover: 240 pages; Yale University Press (Apr 1998)

This lavishly illustrated book presents eighty paintings from the glorious collection of the Yale Center for British Art. Along with an account of Paul Mellon?s lifelong passion for British culture and his contributions to the formation and housing of this collection, the book includes brief essays on each painting—works that span five centuries and represent such leading British artists as Hogarth, Gainsborough, Stubbs, Turner, Constable, and Bonington.

American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum by Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Amy Ellis, Elizabeth R. McClintock – Hardcover: 904 pages; Yale University Press (Jan 31, 1997)

An underappreciated gem, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, is the oldest continuously operating art museum in the United States. The institution was originally founded to house the painting collection of the eccentric American rentier and art patron Daniel Wadsworth (1771-1848), and the American paintings still form the museum's core.

Atheneum curator Kornhauser's two-volume set is a meticulously compiled catalogue raisonne of these works. Emerging from a vast amount of mediocrity are some splendid canvases by such Hudson River School painters as Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Albert Bierstadt, as well as works by John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, Henry O. Tanner, and John Singer Sargent.

Art in the Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts by Frick Collection, Bernice Davidson, Susan Galassi, Charles Ryskamp, Edgar Munhall – Hardcover: 208 pages; Harry N. Abrams (Oct 1996)

In Art in the Frick Collection, museum director Charles Ryskamp takes readers on a tour of the Frick's permanent collection, including paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer as well as Renaissance sculpture and 18th-century French furnishings.