Telling Tales: Stories and Legends in 19th-Century American Art

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts presents Telling Tales: Stories and Legends in 19th-Century American Art from February 27 through June 7, 2015, in the Center’s Upper-Level Galleries. The exhibition features paintings and sculptures that recount stories relating to American cultural aspirations and everyday life throughout the 19th century. Narrative landscapes by Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand of the Hudson River School, genre scenes by William Sidney Mount and Francis W. Edmonds and sculptures by John Rogers are among the highlights of the exhibition.  

Assembled from the collection of the New-York Historical Society, Telling Tales integrates genre, historical, literary and religious subjects—through styles ranging from Neoclassicism to Realism—to paint a vivid portrait of American art and life during the country’s most formative century. The exhibition is organized into six sections: “American History Painting,” “English Literature and History,” “Importing the Grand Manner,” “Genre Paintings,” “Economic, Social, and Religious Division” and “Picturing the Outsider.” Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala says, “The works in Telling Tales show a culture in the process of defining its ideals and values. They offer an overview of the complex tastes, aspirations and internal contradictions that marked the first full century of this new democracy.” 

Image: Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1819–1905). The Latest News, 1862. Oil on canvas. The New-York Historical Society, The Robert L. Stuart Collection, S-175