American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection

Elizabeth Heuer, Ph.D., Principal Author 

Jonathan Stuhlman Ph.D., Editor

This book was published on the touring exhibition, American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection, organized by the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tennessee, and The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, in association with The Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen Ph.D. Foundation. 

September 10-December 24, 2022

"Spanning over 250 years of American art history, the DeMell Jacobsen Collection of American Art celebrates the accomplishments of American artists from past to present. This publication covers the breadth of the collection, exploring the wide range of subjects addressed by American artists over the country's history - ranging from portraiture, landscape, and still life to genre scenes and modernist abstraction, as well as masterful sculptures in marble, bronze, aluminum, steel, and corrugated cardboard. 

Assembling an art collection of this scope is an ambitious undertaking. Indeed, private collections of American art are tightly focused on an individual collector's interest in a specific region, theme, genre, era, or medium. In contrast, this collection was designed to provide a broad - yet in-depth - understanding of America's rich heritage, which has evolved as our knowledge of American art has become more nuanced and complex. Forged through persistent vision and strategic continuity, the collection strives to be a pocked museum of American art. The goal is not to define American art, but rather to acknowledge and celebrate the extraordinary diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives that comprise America's cultural history, growth, and transformation. 

This catalogue provides the first opportunity to bring together many of the most important works of art from the collection and to display them comprehensively for the public. This fully illustrated publication serves as a visual journey through the collection's extensive holdings, featuring essays covering more than 200 objects, with contributions by scholars of American art from across the country. While brief, these essays strive to present an insightful analysis of each work of art, ranging from new research and perspectives on works by well-known artists to the introduction of contributions by lesser-known artists that merit closer attention by art historians in the future. As an educational resource, the catalogue aims to inspire new conversations, perspectives, and research among the next generation of scholars of American art history." 

- Excerpt from the Introduction by Elizabeth Heuer, Ph.D.