The Cincinnati Wing: The Story of Art in the Queen City

In March 2003, The Cincinnati Art Museum will celebrate the opening of the Cincinnati Wing: eighteen thousand square feet of handsomely renovated gallery space devoted to the museum’s renowned collections of painting, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, and metalwork by Cincinnati artists. The museum is the first in the country to reinterpret its American art collections with a regional emphasis, fostering civic pride and drawing attention to the achievements of the city’s artists. In conjunction with the celebration, Ohio University Press is proud to publish The Cincinnati Wing: The Story of Art in the Queen City, showcasing one of America’s foremost art centers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The authors of this collection trace the thematic arrangement of the Cincinnati Wing galleries, situating the artwork in the context of the city’s history as it progressed from a frontier river town to an industrial powerhouse. The Cincinnati Wing provides a vivid picture of the fertile social and cultural climate that produced such prominent figures in the history of American art as sculptor Hiram Powers and painters Robert S. Duncanson, Frank Duveneck, and John H. Twachtman. Cincinnati’s contributions to the decorative arts are exemplified by the stunning ceramics of the celebrated Rookwood Pottery Company, the nation’s leading art pottery firm, and by the city’s lesser-known yet equally significant Aesthetic Movement furniture. One hundred fifty-one color plates highlight the beauty and diversity of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s collections and illuminate the Queen City’s great artistic legacy.