Trouble in Paradise

A collection of highly readable critical essays (1977-2023) by a leader in the field of American social art history. Among the subjects Alan Wallach explores are the art of Thomas Cole, patronage of the Hudson River School, so-called “Luminism,” the rise of the American art museum, the historiography of American art, scholarship and the art market, as well as the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Rockwell Kent, Grant Wood, Philip Evergood, and Norman Rockwell. Throughout, Wallach employs a materialist approach to argue against traditional scholarship that considered American art and art institutions in isolation from their social, historical, and ideological contexts.

Alan Wallach, Ph.D. (1973), is the Ralph H. Wark Professor of Art and Art History and Professor of American Studies Emeritus at the College of William and Mary.