Celebrating the American Spirit is the inaugural presentation of the Museum's collection. Featuring more than 400 works by American masters, and highlighting the full scope of American art and history, this historic and significant collection has been assembled to showcase the artistic traditions of American art. The works are arranged roughly chronologically—with a focus on thematic groupings and stylistic affinities—to tell the story of America's history as seen by its artists.

Several themes emerge through the collection including artists' interactions with nature; the American artist on the world stage; and the presence of women in American society, with an emphasis on their evolving role, both as subject and as artist.

Colonial to Early Nineteenth-Century Art

Colonial Era through 1860

Many early colonial artists, even those born in the New World, retained a sense of connection to their European roots, creating works that engaged with the traditions of western art since the Renaissance. In the early nineteenth century, however, as the nation expanded westward, American artists began to express a new interpretation of the landscape, viewing the vast wilderness as an emblem of America's seemingly infinite possibilities.

Late Nineteenth-Century Art

Paintings from 1865 to 1900

After the Civil War, America's love affair with the landscape blossomed, and artists began creating romantic, luminous scenes of the American West. Some exhibited a longing for a time and place unravaged by war. Many artists of this period traveled to Europe to study, and their work shows the influence of the French Impressionists, capturing the fleeting effects of movement, atmosphere—and above all, light—with small, divided brushstrokes of pure color.

Temporary Exhibitions: Building 4 - Upper Gallery:

Edward Curtis: The North American Indian

Between 1907 and 1930, Curtis set out to capture what he considered a "vanishing race," and created more than 2,200 images of members of some 80 American Indian tribes. Curtis was criticized for sometimes using questionable methods—including clothing his models in traditional costumes from his personal collection, and eliminating evidence of modern influences from his images—in his drive to romanticize the American Indian way of life. Nevertheless, the work documents a time of great change for the Native peoples of North America.

Temporary Exhibitions: Building 4 - Lower Gallery:

The Arkansas Traveler

This exhibition features a collection of paintings, prints, and artifacts that illustrate the history and significance of an American folk story that has been an integral part of Arkansas' mythology and perception. The folktale and song arose as political satire during the 1840 American presidential campaign, but its original meaning became obscured over time.

Early Twentieth-Century Art

Paintings from the Ashcan School to American Modernism: 1900 to 1945

In the first half of the twentieth century, as America became increasingly industrialized and urban, American art began to reflect a grittier, less romantic style. Some continued to embrace realistic, traditional techniques. Others, the Modernists, began to explore more abstract styles. In the traditionalist camps, artists of the Ashcan School focused on streetscapes depicting everyday life in the country's burgeoning cities; and Regionalist artists focused their work on more rural geographic areas. Meanwhile, the Modernists began to turn away from realism and create works of simple color and abstract forms drawn from nature or from the hard-edged machine forms of urbanism and industry.

Twentieth-Century Art

Paintings from Post-World War II art movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Minimalism, and contemporary American Realism With the advent of Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s, the United States became the center of the western art world, and changed the way the world thought about art. Characterized by emotional expression through gesture and painterly touch, these works were striking for their all-over compositions and large scale that immerse the viewer in the immediacy of the experience.

Partly in response to these extravagances, Pop artists took hold of the visual language of media and mass-marketing to create an art form that raised the everyday to a new level of interpretation. The Minimalists went even further, stripping art down to the barest raw materials of shape and color.

In the latter part of the twentieth century, Realism began to re-emerge among American artists seeking new means of expression, perception, and narrative, as well as commenting on issues they perceived in American society. The new Realists reflected a world that had increasingly come to be experienced and interpreted through the popular mediums of photography and television.