Fine Arts in America

Joshua C. Taylor (1917-1981) was a professor of art history at the University of Chicago from 1960 to 1974 and was named the William Rainey Harper chair of art history in 1963. He was director of the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution from 1970 to 1981. He received a Ph. D. from Princeton University in 1956 with a dissertation on the 19th-century American artist William Page. His best known book is "Learning to Look: a Handbook for the Visual Arts", which has become a standard text for art history, humanities, and museum courses. Among other books, he was also the author of "The Fine Arts in America", the editor of "Nineteenth-Century Theories of Art" and a co-editor of "Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics".

"Though comparatively short, it is no once-over-lightly chronicle full of insignificant names and dates. It brilliantly achieves its principal aim: to provide readers with a compact but broad and well rounded conception of the progress of the fine arts in America from ca. 1670 to the present day... It is a fascinating book, full of new vistas; it has all the earmarks of an instant classic" – American Artist

"[Taylor] describes changing definitions of art as much as he describes art itself, and he shows how the shifting forms of patronage affected the forms of art. He analyzes artists' associations... and he shows how museums and schools have expanded the audience for art. In short, he places artists and their work in cultural context. This treatment of the social history of art is the most original and intriguing aspect of Taylor's sketch" – Journal of American History

"This is a brilliantly subtle book. It builds with one insight after another, and suddenly the reader finds that a whole new way of looking at American art is being proposed... After decades of thinking and looking and teaching, Dr. Taylor has written it all down. This work will become a classic interpretation almost overnight" – Peter Marzio, director, Corcoran Gallery of Art

"Interest in American art is unlikely to abate... Mr. Taylor's short book is an invaluable guide through this activity and to its traditions" – Neil Harris, Wall Street Journal