History

Being one of the founding colonies, it is just expected that New Jersey would play an important part in the development of American art. The state has lived up to that promise and it has produced some of the best artists in the country and some pioneers in their own field.

Early Roots: Pioneers in Sculpture 

The state of New Jersey was home to the very first American sculptor. Patience Lovell Wright who hailed from Bordentown is considered to be the American pioneer when it comes to the field of sculpture. She started working with wax and then gradually made a name for herself locally. She soon became famous enough that she opened an exhibition of her works, featuring famous people of her time, in what was probably the first one woman art exhibition in America.

Soon Wright moved over to England and there are stories of her helping out American Prisoners of War, during the American Revolution. She truly is an American original.

A few decades later another New Jersey native became famous for his sculpture. This time it was a Native American named John Frazee who started making a name for himself and his works of art. He was so talented that he never really underwent any formal training as an artist. He just taught himself how to do it when he started cutting tombstones.

Landscapes! Landscapes! 

But New Jerseyans are never content with just trying out a single field in the arts. Asher Brown Durand for example, who was also from New Jersey became one of the leading names in the Hudson River School of painting. The aim of this school is to paint nature as it is and try to capture its natural beauty. Durand traveled extensively in order to witness the actual beauty of nature. He was one of the first artists to actually go out on the field.

Modern Art

If you’re into Modern Art then you should know who Roy Lichtenstein is, but what you might not be aware of is that he is from New Jersey. It was while he was teaching in Rutgers University that he started working on his famous panels of Pop Art. Now his works are as instantly recognizable as those of Warhol.

Those are just the few people who have tied New Jersey with the rest of American History in a bind that could never be unraveled.