More than 100 outstanding works of painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from the Rhode Island School of Design Museum’s collection illuminate connections between American ambitions and the making of art in "Making It in America."

The exhibition opens in the museum in Providence, Rhose Island, with a free public celebration on Thursday, October 10, 5:30 to 8 pm, and is on view through Sunday, February 9, 2014.

“American art has played a central role at the RISD Museum since its earliest days, and we celebrate this legacy with Making It in America," says Museum director John W. Smith. “Drawn exclusively from our phenomenal permanent collection, this show is our first in-depth exploration

of this subject in many years.”

Making It in America liberates artworks from the museum’s galleries, storage vaults, and the

historic period rooms of its Pendleton House wing, repositioning them within the broader context of American styles. These exceptional pieces, created between the early 1700s and early 1900s,

are presented as examples of both artistic processes and aspirations. Just as individual accounts of American life revolve around searches for freedom, fulfillment, and identity, these stories

are also embedded in objects that comprise the history of American art.

“The title is a double entendre that asks our viewers to think about art making and about how American art demonstrates American ideas about success,” explain exhibition co-curators Maureen O’Brien, curator of painting and sculpture, and Elizabeth Williams, curator of decorative arts and design.

John Singleton Copley’s grand manner portrait of Moses Gill, for instance, illustrates the escalating wealth,social standing, and political capital of the 30-year-old merchant and future Massachusetts lieutenant governor. The land of opportunity is seen in painter Thomas Cole’s