American Art: A Catalogue
of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection (1991): Foreword
American Art: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art Collection was
the first publication devoted to the collection of historical American
art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and one in a series
of scholarly catalogues raisonnés that the museum has undertaken
to document its varied and far-ranging holdings. Because of the
museum's distance from Eastern centers of art production and collection,
its American holdings are not as well known to scholars and the
general public as are those of its Eastern counterparts. This volume
aimed to rectify that situation.
Since 1913, when the fledgling Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art opened its newly completed building, American art has played a role central to the museum's identity and development. From its earliest days an active schedule of changing exhibitions was devoted to contemporary American art, and for many decades American art constituted the core of the museum's collection, which until recently was the largest of its kind on the West Coast. In 1916 the museum purchased its first American painting, George Bellows's Cliff Dwellers, a work now considered one of the icons of American art. Through the generosity of its first major patron, William Preston Harrison, the museum continued through the 1920s and 1930s to acquire the finest examples of contemporary American paintings and watercolors by nationally renowned artists. Paintings by Southern California artists, many of them award-winners in exhibitions held at the museum, also entered the collection. A number of patrons have donated historically significant works over the years, and after the art department separated from the history and science sections of the museum to form the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1965, the American art collection became an independent department with its own curator and the museum made a commitment to building a representative collection spanning Colonial times to 1940. As a result, the museum now has over three hundred paintings, sculptures, and watercolors, constituting a survey of the major developments in American art up until World War II as well as a representative sampling of the best of early California art.
In the past quarter-century scholarship in the field of American art history has come of age. During the past decade various public institutions began to document and publish their American art holdings. Many such collection catalogues were encouraged by the support of the Henry Luce Foundation. In late 1980 the foundation established the Luce Fund for Scholarship in American Art to assist museums with significant collections of American art. Two years later the Los Angeles County Museum of Art became one of those to benefit from the Luce Foundation's generosity, and this volume is the result. On behalf of the trustees of the museum I would like to express our appreciation to the Henry Luce Foundation for its support. The beauty and usefulness of the volume has been greatly enhanced by additional color plates generously underwritten by the museum's American Art Council and color plates of California works of art funded by contributors led by James Ries, who are listed in the authors' acknowledgments. The dedication of editor Joseph N. Newland deserves special recognition.
The catalogue was written by Ilene Susan Fort, associate curator of American art, and Michael Quick, curator of American art, both established scholars in their field. I would like to commend them for their diligent research and thoughtful text.
Earl A. Powell III, former director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 
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