Art Students

Louis Lang

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lang settled in New York in 1845, seven years after immigrating to Philadelphia from his native Germany. Here he presents a group of women in an unidentified studio space, industriously practicing the arts of painting, drawing, and sculpture. They appear amidst the varied essentials for training: books of prints, a palette and paints, plaster sculptures and architectural fragments, easels, and creative tools. By the late 1860s, educational opportunities for aspiring professional women artists had expanded; from private lessons with established artists to schools, notably the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, established in 1859, and the Ladies Art Association, started in 1867.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art