The authors profile pioneering contemporary artists, giving examples of their art reproduced in full color, analyzing what makes each great and suggesting why each artist is distinctively American. The back matter includes a 66-term glossary offering a virtual course in art appreciation, data about each artwork pictured, a list of where to see works by the artists, a general bibliography as well as one for each artist, and a standard index. The artists are Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Romare Bearden, Isamu Noguchi, David Smith, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Eva Hesse. A fine companion to the authors' earlier, substantial works, The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art (Delacorte, 1991) and The Sculptor's Eye: Looking at Contemporary American Art (Delacorte, 1993). (Ages 10-18)

In the twentieth century, American artists freed themselves from the conventions of European art. As diverse as the U.S. itself, the works of artists like Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keefe, Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol brought America to the forefront of the international art scene and combined to create an artistic declaration of independence. In lively, lucid prose Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan look at the lives and works of eleven artists who shaped America's vision of itself in the twentieth century, and whose legacy will be felt well into the twenty-first century.