absolutely excellent ( )

Following the brief introduction in which painter, illustrator and author Leonard Everett Fisher traces the history of painting in America from the early days of c1680 to the present (1980s) comes the main section, The Plates. The Plates follows a chronological order offering examples of the artists' work along with brief commentary for each piece. The book concludes with the Picture Credits, ie details of the paintings not provided in the captions, and an index.

The book is well illustrated in colour an black and white. The monochromes are restricted to the introduction and are mostly period portraits or photographs of the artists. All the paintings in the plates section are shown in full-colour, and all are shown full-page in size of larger, crossing the gutter.

While this is a well illustrated survey offering a wide range of paintings, some familiar and others new to me, it does now show its age. The images tend to be soft and the colours are muddy, a long way from the what we expect today (and far from the best of its day even). ( )