Tile Club and the Aesthetic Movement in America

In 1877, a group of artists, writers, architects, and musicians working in New York City formed a club to promote the exchange of ideas by meeting regularly to paint ceramic tiles, and by organizing summer sketching expeditions. The Tile Club, as the new association called itself, included such important forces in the arts as Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, John H. Twachtman, Elihu Vedder, Julian Alden Weir, Edwin Austin Abbey, Arthur B. Frost, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Stanford White. Although the club was in existence for only ten years, it exerted a powerful influence on the development of the art and culture of late-nineteenth-century America.The Tile Club and the Aesthetic Movement in America, which accompanies a major exhibition devoted to this important group of artists sponsored by the Museums at Stony Brook, New York, is the first publication to document the work of the Tile Club and its influence.