Merchants and artists: The Apollo Association and the American Art -Union.
Item
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Title
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Merchants and artists: The Apollo Association and the American Art -Union.
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Identifier
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AAI3083694
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identifier
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3083694
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Creator
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Nichols, Arlene Katz.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Kevin Murphy
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Date
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2003
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | American Studies | History, United States
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Abstract
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The American Art-Union (1839--1852), a New York-based organization run by volunteer merchant-managers, succeeded in spreading a national awareness of American art by means of its lottery, free gallery, the wide distribution of etchings and medals, and its illustrated Bulletin. Founded as the Apollo Gallery in 1838 by James Herring, an entrepreneurial Mason, portraitist, and former Secretary of The American Academy of The Fine Arts, it boasted over 18,000 subscribers at its height in 1849. By 1852 it had run its course.;The Art-Union experience has been frequently summarized in the literature as a merchants' initiative. More recently, its actions and choice of art and artists have been examined as expressions of the class and political interests of its leadership. In this dissertation I have attempted to look beyond the labels to understand the reality of the Art-Union in the context of its times.;I closely examine its managers and their world, positioning the Art-Union as one of a series of New York City fine art initiatives. I consider how New York men of affairs used Enlightenment texts to create an intellectual justification for the involvement of merchants as fine arts patrons. I analyze the Art-Union's antecedents in James Herring's 1830s series of folios, published as The National Portrait Gallery, and in Herring's experience with the American Academy and the Apollo Gallery which preceded the Apollo Association. The Art-Union papers provide the material for establishing the nature of Herring's vision for the organization and the tenor of his relationships with artists. I conclude with a discussion of the Art-Union's political agenda. James Herring was a patriot who hoped to encourage a truly American school of art. As events played out, this generalized patriotism turned to a more specific purpose, the hope that a shared art would be a source of national unity as America moved inexorably closer to Civil War. By the time the courts ruled against the Art-Union's lottery mechanism for art distribution, it had become clear that art would not hold the nation together. The energies of the amateur merchant-managers turned elsewhere.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
