James A. Suydam (1819-1865) was an American landscape painter and art collector who worked during a pivotal time in the country’s history. His art and collection provide a fresh perspective on luminism, a landscape aesthetic celebrated for its expressive effects of light and air. This book offers a new look at how the luminist painters of Suydam’s circle—including John F. Kensett, Sanford R. Gifford, and Frederic Edwin Church—advanced American art during the Civil War–era.

Luminist Horizons explores the art and culture of the period through Suydam’s eyes. It examines how he arrived at his signature coastal views at Newport, Rhode Island and the influences on his artistic choices. Among the most literate artists of his generation, Suydam found inspiration in an array of sources in both American and European art, as well as the works of philosophy, literature, and science found in his extensive library. Profoundly influenced by the revolutionary intellectual discourses of his day, Suydam contributed a vital chapter to the history of American landscape painting. 

Katherine E. Manthorne, Professor of American Art at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, specializes in landscape studies. She is the recent co-author of El Barón de Courcy. Illustraciones de un Viaje, 1831-1833, and The Landscapes of Louis Rémy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad.

Mark D. Mitchell is Assistant Curator of Nineteenth-Century Art at the National Academy Museum. He is the author of Francis A. Silva (1835-1886), In His Own Light and The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, Handbook of the Art Collection, as well as other essays on American art.

Annette Blaugrund is Director of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts. She has published numerous articles and books on American art, including The Tenth Street Studio Building: Artist-Entrepreneurs from the Hudson River School to the American Impressionists.

Published in association with the National Academy Museum

September 2006
9 1/2 x 8 1/4 in., 192 pages
ISBN: 1-887149-16-3
$45.00 (Canada $58.50) CQ 16