Böcker av Bailey Van Hook

The beaux-arts mural movement in America was fueled by energetic young artists and architects returning from training abroad. They were determined to transform American art and architecture to make them more thematically cosmopolitan and technically fluid and accomplished.

This is the first full-length biography of the only major female artist of the beaux-arts mural movement in the United States. It traces her career in mural painting but also in illustration, stained glass, and portraits, as well as extensive publications. Oakley was a role model for many younger female artists but also notable is her later career in promoting international peace in the face of two world wars and the resulting Cold War.

Images of women were ubiquitous in America at the turn of the last century. This study argues that the artists' concept of art coincided with the construction of gender in American culture. It looks at these images of women across stylistic boundaries and within the wider context of European art.