We were tasked by Gregg Hertzlieb, Director of the Brauer Museum at Valparaiso University in Indiana, to design the exhibition catalogue for the American Art collection at the university museum. At this point we have designed a number of potential covers (see the one chosen by the director above) and several versions of the interior arrangements of the images and the text (see the gallery below for more covers and the interior alternatives).

The director and the book’s sponsor wanted to have a choice for the cover, either Thomas Alexander Harrison’s Les Amateurs from 1882-1883 (see below) or Junius R. Sloan’s Cool Morning on the Prairie from 1866. Both chose the version above. Here is the catalogue entry for Sloan’s master piece:

Cool Morning on the Prairie is probably Junius Sloan’s most notable painting. It is a rare example of the prairie painted in the style of the Hudson River School. In it, Sloan shows his niece Cara Pratt walking cows through the damp morning mist at milking time on the family farm in central Illinois. A sense of depth and flatness of the prairie is achieved by painting on a canvas twice as long as it is high and by painting the sky twice the height of the land. Sloan’s enduring artistic importance may ultimately reside in his being one of the first artists to recognize the beauty of the American prairie and to show others how to render it.

Projected publication date: Winter 2020