Since its founding in 1987, American Art has been an indispensable resource for scholars, collectors, and museum-goers who want to enrich their understanding of the nation's art and culture.  The journal encompasses all aspects of the country's visual heritage from colonial to contemporary times. 

The spring 2013 issue of American Art includes essays on the following topics:

• the dialogue between art and financial investment as explored by artists, critics, and economists in the 1960s

• the influence of contemporary violence, political turmoil, and prophetic rhetoric on antebellum artist Thomas Cole's renowned series The Course of Empire (1834-1836)

• late nineteenth-century American sentiments about Alaska as captured by Albert Bierstadt in his painting of a shipwrecked steamer

You'll also find an in-depth interview with the contemporary artist Roger Shimomura and an article that proposes a new theory on the motivation behind the painter Henry Ossawa Tanner's abrupt shift to religious subject matter in the 1890s.

The issue closes with appreciations of two recently deceased individuals who played pivotal roles in the development of American art and art history: Ivan C. Karp (1926-2012), a dealer and gallerist best known as an early champion of pop art; and William Innes Homer (1929-2012), an art historian whose pioneering work as a teacher, curator, and researcher of American art helped propel the discipline to new levels of prestige.

For more information on the journal American Art, including how to subscribe or submit a manuscript for publication consideration, please see americanart.si.edu/research/journal/. Queries may be sent to AmericanArtJournal@si.edu.

Emily D. Shapiro

Executive editor, American Art

Image credit: Roger Shimomura, Diary: December 12, 1941(detail), 1980. Acrylic on canvas, 50 1/4 x 60 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of the artist.