NEW YORK.- The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, has organized the first survey of American art to be presented in the People’s Republic of China. Art in America: Three Hundred Years of Innovation will feature approximately 130 important works of American art spanning the Colonial period to the present age, focusing on painting drawn from major U.S. and European collections, including the Terra Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation. The exhibition will premiere in Beijing at the National Art Museum of China, from February 10 through April 5, 2007, and will travel to Shanghai where it will be co-presented by the Shanghai Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, from May 1 to June 30, 2007.

This exhibition has been organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago. This exhibition is made possible by Alcoa Foundation. Major original funding is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support is provided by Ford Motor Company Fund and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. The exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai is also generously supported by Hugo Boss.

“The Guggenheim’s commitment to China has been central to its identity and strategy as a global cultural institution,” said Thomas Krens, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. “We are pleased to work with our museum partners in Beijing and Shanghai to realize Art in America, the first historical survey of American art ever presented in China. The exhibition offers an extraordinary view of our nation’s cultural and historical developments and bold creative principles. This project promises to increase understanding of American history and culture among the Chinese public, and hopefully can be an inspirational threshold for greater dialogue between the peoples and cultures of America and China.”

“An international lens informs all that we do at the Terra Foundation,” said Elizabeth Glassman, president and CEO, Terra Foundation for American Art. “In the largest sense, our goal for Art in America is to expand and enrich knowledge of American art among Chinese audiences. By revealing the complexities of our nation’s history and artistic heritage, we seek to distinguish our own culture while simultaneously forging new and enduring connections with the Chinese. We are pleased to partner with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in this historic exhibition and extend our thanks to all the lenders for sharing their treasurers with the world.”

Alcoa Foundation is pleased to support another important Guggenheim cultural exchange, Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation, and we look forward to sharing these rich representations of the American experience with the Chinese people, particularly the opportunity to bring this history to a variety of regional audiences through the educational program,” said Alain Belda, Chairman and CEO of Alcoa. “We congratulate the Guggenheim for assembling this impressive set of works.”

“It was in 1998 that the Guggenheim first approached the Henry Luce Foundation with the exciting idea for the exhibition and catalogue Art in America,” said the foundation’s president, Michael Gilligan. “Given our longstanding commitment to promoting better understanding between America and China and to bringing the work of American artists to more widespread attention, this is a natural fit. We are honored to assist in this important undertaking to bring 300 years of American art to China, and we look forward to sharing this artistic heritage with the Chinese people, who have long shared theirs with us.”

Exhibition Overview: Divided into six historical periods, Art in America: Three Hundred Years of Innovation demonstrates how the art of each era both reflected and contributed to a complex visual narrative of the nation during times of discovery, growth, and experimentation. The exhibition explores issues of identity, creation, innovation, and scale—characteristics integral to the American consciousness and derived in part from the variety and vastness of the cultural, political, ethnic, economic, and natural landscapes of the United States. The six sections, each marking significant phases of the country’s development, are: Colonization and Rebellion (1700–1830); Expansion and Fragmentation (1830–1880); Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism (1880–1915); Modernism and Regionalism (1915–1945); Prosperity and Disillusionment (1945–1980); and Multiculturalism and Globalization (1980–present).

The exhibition features approximately 120 artists from the early 18th century to the present and includes: John Singleton Copley; Benjamin West; Charles Willson Peale; Gilbert Stuart; George Catlin; Frederic Edwin Church; Edward Hicks; Winslow Homer; Martin Johnson Heade; John Singer Sargent; Albert Bierstadt; Mary Cassatt; Childe Hassam; Frederick Remington; Marsden Hartley; Robert Henri; George Bellows; Charles Demuth; Georgia O’Keeffe; Stuart Davis; Thomas Hart Benton; Grant Wood; Norman Rockwell; Jackson Pollock; Willem de Kooning; Mark Rothko; Robert Motherwell; Robert Rauschenberg; Jasper Johns; Andy Warhol; Roy Lichtenstein; Donald Judd, Dan Flavin; Brice Marden; Chuck Close; Lawrence Weiner; Richard Prince; Keith Haring; Jean-Michel Basquiat; Jeff Koons; Felix Gonzalez-Torres; Kara Walker; and Matthew Barney, among many others.

Highlights of the exhibition include: Benjamin West’s Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1771–72, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts); Charles Willson Peale’s George Washington (ca. 1780–82, Walton Family Foundation); Henry Inman’s Yoholo-Micco (1832–33, High Museum of Art, Atlanta); Thomas Cole’s Landscape with Figures: A Scene from "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826, Terra Foundation for American Art); George Caleb Bingham’s Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap (1851–52, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum of Art, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri); Asher B. Durand’s A Symbol (1856, Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee); Edward P. Moran’s The Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (1886, Museum of the City of New York); Winslow Homer’s Watching the Breakers: A High Sea (1896, The Arkell Museum at Canajoharie, New York); Walt Kuhn’s Clown with Drum (1942, Terra Foundation for American Art); Marsden Hartley’s Painting No. 50 (1914–15, Terra Foundation for American Art); Edward Hopper’s Corn Hill (Truro, Cape Cod) (1930, Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas); Jackson Pollock’s The Moon-Woman (1942, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy); Andy Warhol’s Race Riot (1963, Daros Collection, Zurich, Switzerland); Willem de Kooning’s Composition (1955, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum); Ed Ruscha’s Back of Hollywood (1977, Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon, France); Dan Flavin’s green crossing green (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green) (1966, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Panza Collection); Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Man from Naples (1982, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa); Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle (1994–2002, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum); Kara Walker’s Insurrection! (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On) (2000, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum); and John Currin’s Thanksgiving (2003, Tate Gallery), to name a few.

The curatorial team of the exhibition has been led by Thomas Krens, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The following curators of American art contributed to the exhibition: Susan Davidson, Senior Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Elizabeth Kennedy, Curator of the Collection, Terra Foundation for American