This volume details the development of the Tonalist landscape: the early works of John La Farge at Newport in the 1860s; the influence of Whistler and Inness in the 1880s; the American expatriate art colonies in Europe; and, the development of Tonalism after 1900, which lay the groundwork for modernism in the Stieglitz Circle and subsequently Milton Avery, the Abstract Expressionism of Rothko Gottlieb, and Newman, and post-modern Tonalists like Wolf Kahn.The book challenges standard notions of American art history, tracing the origins of modernism in America back to the late 1870s, with Tonalism as the driving force in the development of a distinctly American vision, reflecting abstract and spiritual impulses that remain a force in American art today. Through its imagery, scholarship and a narrative that incorporates the voices of long-overlooked artists, critics, and writers, "A History of American Tonalism: 1880-1920" will serve as an indispensable guide to the cultural history of turn-of-the-century America.