Treasures to Go Makes a Stop in South Carolina

Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens today at the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina.

Young America is one of eight exhibitions in Treasures to Go, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, touring the nation through 2002. The portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and everyday scenes assembled in this exhibition reveal the democratic ideals and vision that shaped America as it evolved from a collection of British colonies into independent nationhood. These paintings and sculptures, created between the 1760s and the 1870s, reflect life in New England and the mid-Atlantic, where initially British artistic traditions were the strongest influence but soon the grand cultural traditions of Italy prevailed.

Source: Gwen Everett. Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Raphaelle Peale (1774–1825), Melons and Morning Glories,1813, oil, 20 3/4 x 25 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Paul Mellon.