Arts in America: A Bibliography

Arts in America: A Bibliography. Ed. by Bernard Karpel. Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979. $190.00. 4 v. LC 79–15321. ISBN 0–87474–578–0. The publication of Arts in America: A Bibliography by the Smithsonian Institution Press should be greeted with enthusiasm not only by scholars of American art, but by anyone with an interest in bibliography in general. This compendium of mostly secondary materials is composed of four beautifully designed folio volumes which together list more than 25,000 entries. This bibliography will serve as an indispensable reference guide to a previously uncharted body of important cultural material. S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary of the Smithsonian, notes that “scholarship … begins with knowledge of previously published work …” (“Foreword”); Arts in America is a pioneer project designed with this goal in mind — to serve as a foundation upon which all future scholarship on the arts will depend.