On December 13, the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida opened “American Treasures,” an exhibition featuring thirty-six artworks by renowned American artists that will continue until December 18, 2012. The exhibition offers viewers the opportunity to consider two centuries of artistic achievement and reflect on the diversity of period styles and individual voices that make up the history of American Art.

The Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana has recreated the studio of Victor Higgins and placed one of his plein air landscapes near a larger studio oil painting based on that sketch. The display brings attention to an Indiana native who settled permanently in Taos, New Mexico and became a member of the Taos Society of Artists in 1917.

In the midst of a snow storm, Edward Willis Redfield would strap a 50” x 56” canvas to a tree, thin his paint with linseed oil to keep it from freezing, and use his gloved hands to paint a scene near his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He firmly believed that paintings should be completed “in one go” and directly from nature.