This lavishly illustrated book, surprisingly the first on the subject, explores the tremendous scope, richness, toughness, sensibility, and liveliness of the American realist tradition.

Sixteen varied sections discuss and display the finest and most influential work of different groups, schools, and periodsbeginning before the Revolutionary War and including American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, Precisionism, American Scene painting, Urban Realism, Photorealism, and today's Postmodern Realism - and provide convincing proof that the American realist legacy occupies an unparalleled position in world art.

In this important critical synthesis, Edward Lucie-Smith discusses the work of the pioneering masters of American realism, such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Charles Sheeler, Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth.

He adds a major new dimension in his examination of the work of contemporary realist painters: those recently acknowledged as major figures, among them Isabel Bishop, Alice Neel, and Fairfield Porter, and those such as Wayne Thiebaud and Leon Golub, whose reputations and contribution only currently are coming to full appreciation. He includes as well younger artists like Eric Fischl and Jeff Koons, who have achieved star status within this innovative tradition. The book thus carries the story of American realism right up to the present, showing how it continues to flourish today as strongly as it has in the past.

A magnificent volume, with more than one hundred color plates, American Realism both celebrates and reveals the power of a great American legacy.