Designer sportswear was not usurped from Europe, as “modern art” would later be; it was genuinely invented and developed in America.

Beginning in the early 1930s, American designer sportswear came into its own, later becoming a major force in fashion that continued into the 1990s to influence the way women dress. Designers such as Bonnie Cashin, Tina Leser, Vera Maxwell, Claire McCardell, Clare Potter, and Emily Wilkens initiated a new standard of dressing, one that is right for the lifestyle of the modern woman and that is purely American in its practicality, simplicity, and democratic elements. This was clothing for comfort and versatility that rationally answered the needs of women and was created mostly by women. In 1932, a legendary retailer at Lord & Taylor, Dorothy Shaver, presented a series of showings in the store of new American sportswear trends, for the first time bringing the designers together and specifically naming them. The new sensibility was toward freedom of movement and freedom of choice, and the clothing included mix-and-match ensembles, playsuits, pants, and a variety of activewear. This was the start of the particular branch of fashion history that is presented in American Ingenuity. Richard Martin, Curator of The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has brought these designers together again, and his text both examines their position and import as a historical group and discusses their individual accomplishments. His introduction includes period photographs of models wearing the clothes and a discussion of the history of the group, which is integrally related to The Museum of Costume Art in New York City; which, in 1945, merged with The Metropolitan Museum of Art to become The Costume Institute. In light of the early and important connection between The Costume Institute and American designer sportswear, it is particularly appropriate that this publication and the exhibition it accompanies originate at the Metropolitan Museum. The body of this book is divided into five sections, which provide a view of the individual fashions along with discussions of the characteristics and techniques of a number of the innovators of American sportswear. "Wrapping and Tying" features clothes that exemplify the creation of outfits that adjust to the individual wearer, such as Claire McCardell's cottons that make use of tying at both waist and neck and her washable cotton bathing suits that give both comfort and convenience. "Latching," which stresses easy and independent fastening, includes Bonnie Cashin's use of snaps and luggage fasteners. Chapter three is about "Stowing," and here we see big pockets, conspicuous on purpose, which are intended to free women from carrying purses. "Harmonizing" is next and presents mix-and-match separates that allow women to create their own "new look," one that is very different from that of Dior. The last chapter is "Adapting" and is about elements taken from menswear and carefree activewear. Following is a group of twenty-three Profiles of Designers that bring together information about the major practitioners of American sportswear from the 1930s to the 1970s. American Ingenuity continues the mission of The Costume Institute to examine and document diverse aspects of fashion history and fashion's present. It is a fitting tribute to American sportswear. As Richard Martin has written in the Introduction, "Of course, these practical, insightful designers have determined the course of late twentieth-century fashion. They were the pioneers of gender equity in their useful, adaptable clothing, which was both made for the masses and capable of self-expression."

In the mid-1840s, the Scottish painter-photographer team of Hill and Adamson produced the first substantial body of self-consciously artistic work using the newly invented medium of photography.

No longer experimental or unreliable but not yet industrialized, photography in the 1850s was still very much a handcrafted medium with technical treatises that provided the foundation of knowledge on which individual photographers could build their experience.

When the Spanish landed on the coast of what is today Peru in 1532, they encountered the socially complex, artistically vibrant Inca Empire, whose vast, geographically diverse domain encompassed almost the entire length of the rugged Andes. Inca master weavers and metalsmiths, building on thousands of years of local artisanal mastery, had created a spectacular body of imperial art whose bold, mostly geometric designs were powerful expressions of Inca identity and sovereignty. Within one generation that culture had been forever transformed by the establishment of the viceroyalty of Peru. The remarkable exchange of cultures that ensued brought Europe and the New World together through a vibrant trade in goods, services, and ideas, creating a unique society that was richer and far more intriguing than the mere sum of its influences. Tapestry weaving and silverwork, for centuries two of the primary art forms in the Andes, flourished during the colonial era, as many highly skilled indigenous artists were inspired by exotic new design sources form around the world. The refined weaving methods the Inca had cultivated were put to use crafting all manner of textile goods, from grand armorial hangings to meticulously woven garments, bedcovers and carpets. SIlverwork, too, was transformed, especially after the discovery of great lodes of the precious metal in the mountains above the town of Potosí, in modern Bolivia. Native metalworkers and European immigrant silversmiths alike struggled to keep pace with commissions, which included every variety of domestic object—from ewers, trays and basins to incense burners—as well as ecclesiastical pieces, such as the elaborate monstrances used to display the consecrated Host during Mass. Of the many dramatic changes brought about in Andean daily life and art during the viceregal period, none had as profound or lasting an impact as the introduction of Christianity. The patronage of the Roman Catholic Church, one of the most powerful forces in viceregal society, is still evident in the majestic cathedrals and churches of major cities such as Arequipa, Lima, and Cuzco, whose treasuries abound with beautifully worked liturgical vessels and implements, and in the many convents and smaller parishes scattered about the Peruvian and Bolivian countryside. Perhaps nowhere was the Baroque grandeur of colonial Peru more evident than in Cuzco, the former Inca capital, especially during the festival of Corpus Christi. This annual celebration evolved into a spectacular procession that was, in effect, a showcase for civic allegiance, Christian devotion, and material wealth. This unique volume illustrates and discusses in detail more than 160 extraordinary fine and decorative art works of the colonial Andes, including examples of the intricate Inca weavings and metalwork that preceded the colonial era as well as a few of the remarkably inventive forms this art took after independence from Spain. An international array of scholars and experts examines the cultural context, aesthetic pre-occupations, and diverse themes of art from the viceregal period, particularly the florid patternings and the fanciful beasts and hybrid creatures that have come to characterize colonial Andean art.

For Eakins, the camera was a teaching device comparable to anatomical drawing, a tool the modern artist should use to train the eye to see what was truly before it.

Genoa, well known as a seaport established in ancient times and as the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, emerged as a major artistic center toward the middle of the sixteenth century, sparked by the sea lord Andrea Doria's political leadership and ready patronage and the artist Perino del Vaga's arrival from Rome. The technically masterful, even boldly experimental, drawings and prints in this exhibition illustrate Genoa's growth by the early seventeenth century into an important regional artistic school. Some of the drawings were made as independent works of art, as for instance ones by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, characterized by rich painterliness and dramatic content. Many sheets are preparatory drawings, which eloquently describe the Genoese tradition of illusionistic fresco painting that unfolded almost in its entirety within the splendid interiors of the new churches and palazzi erected on the Via Balbi and Strada Nuova (now Via Garibaldi). In addition to better-known artists—Luca Cambiaso, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Giovanni Battista Gaulli (Baciccio), Bernardo Strozzi, for example—the exhibition includes less-studied Genoese artists, such as Carlo Alberto Baratta, Giulio Benso, Bartolomeo Biscaino, Bernardo and Valerio Castello, Giovanni David, and Gregorio and Lorenzo de Ferrari, all of whom significantly influenced other artists both in Genoa and elsewhere in Italy. A number of years before his death, Jacob Bean, then Drue Heinz Curator, Department of Drawings, envisioned an exhibition of drawings and prints selected from New York collections that would highlight the work of Genoese artists between 1530 and 1800. Not only was Jacob very much the conceptual force behind the present exhibition, but he and the late Lawrence Turčić, then assistant curator, were also noted connoisseurs of Genoese drawings. Their discoveries are attested to by a large, mostly unpublished dossier of attributions to Genoese artists made during the course of more than a decade and kept in the archives of the Department of Drawings and Prints. It is in their memory that this exhibition has been mounted, with works selected by William Griswold, Nadine Orenstein, and Carmen Bambach, the latter two of whom also prepared the catalogue entries.