Kentucky: The Master Painters from the Frontier Era to the Great Depression

Kentucky: The Master Painters from the Frontier Era to the Great Depression by Pennington, Estill Curtis. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780615242156.

In the twenty-five years since The Kentucky Painter from the Frontier Era to the Great War opened at the University of Kentucky Art Museum, interest in the topic has steadily increased. This volume is a survey of the major painters of note, organized by chronological and thematic topics. Viewers will recognize some of the familiar names here, especially Matthew Harris Jouett and Paul Sawyier. But they may be surprised by the work of little-known but accomplished artists whose work merits serious consideration as part of the astonishingly vibrant artistic tradition in Kentucky. For a place of fairly recent frontier origins, a small populace, and extremely disparate regions, the Commonwealth has certainly had - and continues to have - its fair share of proficient artists. The artists presented here were not "regional" painters working in isolation. Many were quite well-trained. This book celebrates their achievements even as it seeks to nurture an ongoing interest in Kentuckys art history.