The Color of the Moon

On my modern met's top ten list of best creative books to celebrate the 50th anniversary of moon landing. The moon-its face, color, and power-threads through the tapestry of American landscape painting, holding timeless allure for artists and beloved by viewers of paintings everywhere. The Hudson River Museum has organized The Color of the Moon - Lunar Painting in American Art-the first major museum examination of the moon in American visual arts from the nineteenth through the twentieth centuries for a 2019 exhibition. This timely presentation also celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission when, in 1969, American astronauts first stepped onto the surface of the moon. From the romantic silvery moonscapes of nineteenth-century artists to the abstractions by artists of the twentieth century who explored the moon, the perfect orb, and tapped into its spiritual possibilities, this celestial body, closest to Earth, remains constant in our sky, though our relationship to it and our home planet changes, as technology extends our reach toward space. The Hudson River Museum, Fordham University Press, and the James A. Michener Art Museum are joint publishers of the lavishly illustrated catalog The Color of the Moon - Lunar Painting in American Art.