The final installment of the “American Encounters” exhibition series co-organized by the musée du Louvre, the High Museum of Art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art, the exhibition “The Simple Pleasures of Still Life” explores the rise of still-life painting in 19th-century America. In the wake of the exhibitions on landscape, genre painting, and portraiture, this exhibition provides a new opportunity to foster dialogue on American painting.

Featuring 10 artworks from the collections of the four partner institutions, this final exhibition follows on from the previous ones to illustrate how American painters like Raphaelle Peale, Martin Johnson Heade, and William Michael Harnett adapted European models to their time and country, and thus contributed to the creation of a national voice.