Barbara Groseclose The phenomena to which my title alludes require explanation: research and writing on the history of pre-1945 American art by non-Americans have reached a stage of proliferation that permits the discipline, formerly practiced almost entirely by Americans, to be deemed international. Yet art historians in the United States may find themselves only vaguely aware of these new circumstances. To be sure, the essays and books of Terry Smith and Robert Hughes, who are Australians, and Britons Robert Lawson-Peebles and Andrew Hemingway regularly receive that universal academic imprimatur, a place on the syllabus. On the other hand, Roland Tissot, who gives American impressionist painting the benefit of French formalist readings, and his compatriot Jean-Loup Bourget, a multifaceted historian of American cinema and painting, are less familiar to American readers not only because tend to write in French but also because sometimes publish in venues outside the customary sphere of most university libraries.1 A more extensive listing of international writers could be compiled; my purpose, however, is not to recount a bibliography but to account for it. Since art history as it was introduced to programs of higher education was German in its intellectual bases and-as a result of World War II-often in its faculty, then in the United States it has always been a discipline practiced by an international coterie. National art histories being what are, of course, Americans generally assume that their own accounts of, say, the Hudson River School, are authoritative, much as the Dutch favor their own explanations of Rembrandt or Italians prefer Italian readings of Michelangelo. But unlike widespread European art collections that promote internationalism among connoisseurs, patrons, and scholars as well as public viewers, the objects constituting historical American painting and sculpture have been confined almost entirely to the United States, limiting their exposure.2 In terms of non-American scholarship in American art, the exchange in past years has thus been presumed to be, to put it crudely, us to them. While this does not accurately describe the situation, it describes a perception of it. If they now produce compelling analyses, offer novel insights, and reason persuasively, it may be said that the exchange is no longer one-way. Not that there has been a lot of traffic previously, which is why I helped to convene a panel for the 1999 meeting of the Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA) at the College Art Association (CAA) to address the question: Where and how does the study of historical American art show up abroad? Dismayed that the trajectory of American art history's scholarly and popular rise in the United States did not appear
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