Timelines of World Art: Americas (Native North America, USA, Latin America & Caribbean, Pre-Columbian)
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1768 |
Revolutionary patriot Paul Revere crafts one of the most famous examples of American presentation silver, the Sons of Liberty Punchbowl. Read more... |
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c. 1768 |
John Singleton Copley, the most famous portrait painter in Revolutionary America, depicts Paul Revere not as a fighter but as a skilled craftsman at work. Read more... |
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1779 |
Charles Willson Peale executes one of his most famous portraits of George Washington, representing the leader as an impressive general after the successful Battle of Princeton. Read more... |
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1793 |
Work begins on the US Capitol building in Washington DC. The structure of the building symbolizes the composition of the legislature: one flanking wing each for the Senate and House of Representatives and a central domed rotunda to indicate their essential unity. Read more... |
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c. 1800 |
The oldest surviving example of Native American Plains battle painting is the Mandan Robe acquired by Lewis and Clark during their expedition. Painted by the men of the tribe, the sparse composition, stick-like figures and concern with hunting events resemble Native American rock paintings. Read more... |
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c. 1807 |
Duncan Phyfe, known for his Neo-classical furnishings, becomes the most sought-after furnituremaker in New York. Read more... |
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1836 |
In compositions such as Oxbow on the Connecticut River Thomas Cole, one of the foremost American painters of the 19th century, imbues his landscapes with moralizing themes and explores the relationship between man and nature. Read more... |
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c. 1850 |
The most elaborate use of beadwork in the Woodlands region of North America is on the large bags made by the Great Lakes peoples. While earlier designs consist primarily of geometric motifs, later patterns are denser and contain complex foliate imagery. Read more... |
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c. 1850–c. 1875 |
The Pomo Indians of North America make elaborate feathered bowl wedding baskets. Read more... |
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1851 |
Painted by Edward Leutze shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, Washington Crossing the Delaware presents an heroic General Washington leading his troops to win a victory that marked a key turning point in the Revolutionary War. Read more... |
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c. 1853 |
Atsidi Sani is the first Navajo to work independently as a blacksmith and jeweller. Read more... |
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1858 |
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux win the competition to design and build Central Park in New York. Olmsted is inspired by his belief in the ennobling power of culture and landscape and succeeds in making the country's first large fully-landscaped public park. Read more... |
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1868 |
The Mandolin Painter by American artist Mary Cassatt is accepted for exhibition by the Paris Salon. Cassatt's paintings and pastels are distinctive among the Impressionists for their maternal and domestic subjects and extensive influence of Japanese woodblock prints. Read more... |
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1875 |
Thomas Eakins portrays, with startling accuracy and detail, the renowned surgeon Samuel Gross in the middle of an operation. Rejected by the Centennial exhibition jury as not being a work of art, the Gross Clinic is instead displayed as a medical exhibit. Read more... |
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1883 |
John Augustus Roebling completes the Brooklyn Bridge. This suspension bridge between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan contributes to the eventual political union between the two boroughs. Read more... |
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1885 |
William Le Baron Jenney erects in Chicago the Home Insurance Building (destr. 1931), the first building to be constructed entirely with a steel skeleton. This construction method provides the model for future skyscrapers. Read more... |
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1907 |
American photographer Alfred Stieglitz takes one of his most enduring photographs, The Steerage. Read more... |
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1909 |
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright builds the Robie House in the Prairie style. Read more... |
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1925 |
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo has a bus accident that leaves her seriously disabled. She underwent some 32 operations before her death and her lifeʼs work of over 200 paintings, mostly self-portraits, deals directly with her battle to survive. Read more... |
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1931 |
The Empire State Building in New York is completed only one year and forty-five days after work starts on its steel frame. At 381 metres high, the Art Deco skyscraper remained the tallest building in the world until 1965. Read more... |
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1947–1952 |
Jackson Pollock, key figure of Abstract Expressionism, creates radically new poured or 'drip' paintings, including: One: Number 31, 1950. Read more... |
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1962 |
Andy Warhol creates his tribute to Hollywood glamour and comment of consumer culture with The Marilyn Diptych, an important example of Pop art. Read more... |
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1970 |
American sculptor Robert Smithson creates Spiral Jetty, the first Earthwork in the Land art movement, spawning a whole movement towards site specific and environmental art. Read more... |
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1974–1979 |
Judy Chicago creates a major piece of Feminist art with The Dinner Party: A Symbol of our Heritage in which she uses traditional domestic skills, such as embroidery, to honour over 1000 women. Read more... |
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1994 |
Kara Walker, African American artist, rises to fame in an exhibition at The Drawing Center in New York of her work Gone: An Historical Romance of Civil War As it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of Young Negress and Her Heart Read more... |
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