On view now through Oct. 2, 2016, at the Denver Art Museum is a traveling exhibition centered on American art from 1830 to 1960.  The 304-page exhibition catalog can be ordered online through the Denver Museum Shop: As an enduring wellspring of creativity for many artists throughout history, dance has provided a visual language to express such themes as the bonds of community, the allure of the exotic, and the pleasures of the body. This book is the first major investigation of the visual arts related to American dance, offering an unprecedented, interdisciplinary overview of dance-inspired works from 1830 to 1960.

Fourteen essays by renowned historians of art and dance analyze the ways dance influenced many of America’s most prominent artists, including George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Cecilia Beaux, Isamu Noguchi, Aaron Douglas, Malvina Hoffman, Edward Steichen, Arthur Davies, William Johnson, and Joseph Cornell.

The artists did not merely represent dance, they were inspired to think about how Americans move, present themselves to one another, and experience time. Their artwork, in turn, affords insights into the cultural, social, and political moments in which it was created. For some artists, dance informed even the way they applied paint to canvas, carved a sculpture, or framed a photograph. Richly illustrated, the book includes depictions of Irish-American jigs, African-American cakewalkers, and Spanish-American fandangos, among others, and demonstrates how dance offers a means for communicating through an aesthetic, static form. Jane Dini, editor, is associate curator of American art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and former assistant curator of American art at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Detroit Institute of Arts - "Dance: American Art 1830-1960"
(3/20/2016 – 6/12/2016)

Denver Art Museum - "Rhythm & Roots: Dance in American Art"
(7/10/2016 - 10/02/2016)

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - "The Art of American Dance: 1830-1960"
(10/22/2016 - 01/16/2017)

Dance: American Art 1830–1960
Edited by Jane Dini
With essays by Thomas F. DeFrantz, Lynn Garafola, Dakin Hart, Constance Valis Hill, Analisa Leppanen-Guerra, Valerie J. Mercer, Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Kenneth John Myers, Bruce Robertson, and Sharyn R. Udall
Published by the Detroit Institute of Arts, distributed by Yale University Press, 2016
ISBN: 9780300211610
Hard cover, 10 x 11"
304 pages, 230 color illustrations