Cynthia Mills, Clark Mellon Curatorial Fellow, was executive editor of the journal American Art from 2000 to 2011 and academic programs coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution's American Art Museum. She is co-editor of East-West Interchanges in American Art (2012) and of Monuments to the Lost Cause- Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory (2003). Her essays and lectures have focused on American sculpture in the late nineteenth century, especially the evolution of funerary memorials.
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In this posthumously published work, Mills brings together a
variety of threads to examine the nature of mourning and
monumentality in the US from the 1880s to WW I. She focuses
on several elite Eastern families, such as Henry and Clover Adams
and William and Emelyn Story and their social networks in the US
and abroad, to provide a context for the dissemination of
"high-style" art in cemetery memorials during the period. The
family tragedies of the deaths of spouses are background for the
discussion of memorial art. Focusing on the work of such
sculptors as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, and
Frank Duveneck, the author delves into their relationships to these
families, their reception in both memorial art and high art, and
subsequent influence and imitation. Mills is especially good
at drawing out the perceived tensions between everyday
memorialization and the work of these artists in the social
environment of the period, as well as the contrasts between the
intentions of the families and public reception of the memorials.
Excellent photographs and a beautiful layout aid in the
presentation. For collections in art history and history.
--J. C. Wanser, Hiram College
Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through
researchers/faculty; general readers.
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