Framing America A Social History of American Art Volumes 1 and 2 4th Edition

Framing America: A Social History of American Art, Fourth Edition — Volume 1: c. 200 BCE–1900 by Frances K. Pohl — Published by Thames & Hudson

One of the most widely adopted and critically praised American art history texts available, Framing America takes a broadly inclusive, socially engaged approach to the visual culture of the United States — one that goes far beyond a survey of canonical paintings and sculptures to explore the full diversity of American artistic production across time, geography, culture, and medium.

Volume 1 spans from the earliest indigenous art forms of North America through the close of the nineteenth century, tracing the development of American visual culture across a vast and contested landscape. Rather than organizing art history as a procession of individual masterworks, Frances K. Pohl situates each work within the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shaped its making and reception. Art created by Native Americans, African Americans, women, immigrant communities, and working-class people is given equal scholarly attention alongside the works of more traditionally celebrated artists, making this one of the most genuinely representative surveys of American art in print.

The Fourth Edition has been substantially revised and updated to incorporate the latest scholarship, with new works added throughout and expanded attention to Indigenous art traditions, the art of the American West, and the intersections of race, gender, and class in nineteenth-century visual culture. Hundreds of full-color illustrations make this a visually rich as well as intellectually rigorous resource.

Frances K. Pohl is Professor Emerita of Art History at Pomona College, where she taught American art history for many years. Her commitment to social history as a framework for understanding art has made Framing America the definitive text for instructors who believe that understanding who made art, for whom, and under what conditions is inseparable from understanding the art itself.