The University of Arkansas Press announces the forthcoming publication of In American Waters: The Role of the Sea in American Painting, by Austen Barron Bailly and Daniel Finamore.

American Waters is the catalog of an exhibition co-organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

The exhibition, set to open at Peabody Essex on May 29, 2021 and run through October 3 and then travel to Crystal Bridges for an exhibition scheduled from November 6 through January 31, 2022, invites visitors to discover the sea as an expansive way to reflect on American culture and environment, learn how coastal and maritime symbols moved inland across the United States, and question what it means to be “in American waters.” The exhibition and catalog will include work by Georgia O’Keeffe, Amy Sherald, Kay WalkingStick, Norman Rockwell, Hale Woodruff, Paul Cadmus, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Valerie Hegarty, Stuart Davis, and many others.

As with the previous books published in this collaboration, In American Waters will include catalog entries on the artists and the artwork, with essays from scholars, critics, and the curators. It is the fifth book the Press has published in collaboration with Crystal Bridges and the University of Arkansas School of Art.

Austen Barron Bailly is chief curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  Daniel Finamore is the Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History, Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

In American Waters is scheduled for publication in May, 2021.