Up to 832,000 words, including Foreword, Preface, Introduction, captions for colour plates and comparative images, Catalogue presenting 695 paintings, discursive commentaries and scholarly apparatus, Technical Glossary, Guide to Technical Notes and index - One of the most important, and among the oldest, collections of American painting in the U.S. - A near-complete survey of American painting from the colonial period to the early twentieth century - Presents nearly 700 paintings by 340 artists, 160 of them in colour - Includes masterpieces by Copley, Cole, Eakins, Ryder and Sargent - Strong coverage of individual categories, such as Colonial Portraiture, Hudson River School, American - Renaissance, American Impressionism and the Ashcan School - Features artist biographies and individual scholarly, interpretative entries for each painting, accompanied by provenance and exhibition history - Systematic inclusion of technical information and analysis of each painting Like the collection, this 2-volume catalogue is remarkable for its scope, depth, and quality.The inclusion of a critical 2-part introduction on the history of the founding and growth of the collection sets this catalogue above many publications that have merely provided standardized information on artists and individual objects, without a larger context. This analytical introduction considers the two-fold origin of Brooklyn's American painting collection: the progressive programmes of the mid-nineteenth-century Brooklyn Institute (the Museum's predecessor institution) to collect the work of living American artists of the 1840s and 1850s; and the Brooklyn Museum's active and forward-thinking collecting in the field of contemporary American art throughout the twentieth century. Both of these discussions are considered within the wider context of shifting attitudes towards American art, and the role of museums in fostering it over the course of twentieth century. The main body of the catalogue presents nearly 700 works by 350 artists, which together constitute an invaluable reference resource in the study of historical American painting. The Brooklyn Museum's collection provides a near-complete survey of American painting up to the early twentieth century, which documents most of the major American artists from John Singleton Copley and Thomas Cole to Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent. Brooklyn's collection offers remarkable concentrations of works in such important categories as Colonial portraiture; Hudson River School landscape; mid-nineteenth-century narrative painting; American Impressionism; Gilded Age figure painting; and early modern realism. Individual artists like Eakins, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Sargent are also represented in heavy concentration. The catalogue provides detailed biographical information on each artist, and a scholarly, interpretive entry on every painting, accompanied by provenance and exhibition history. Full technical information is also provided, and is based on firsthand analysis of each painting conducted for this catalogue by a conservator.