The American Art Forum, a small group of collectors from across the United States, was begun twenty years ago by Charles C Eldredge while he was director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. By founding this group, he put the museum in touch with many of the finest collectors of American art. The Forum plays a vital role in introducing far-flung collectors to each other and to the rich variety of public museums across the United States. It is an informal conference for the exchange of news and ideas, held in the far-ranging and ever-fascinating regions of a vast country. The Forum has visited all the biggest cities in the United States and explored public and private collections from all points of the compass. Now, as part of the Forum's twentieth anniversary celebrations, the Smithsonian American Art Museum is proud to offer Variations on America, an exhibition and accompanying volume of seventy-two treasured artworks collected by members of the Forum and selected for the exhibition by the Museum's curators. Chief curator Eleanor Jones Harvey, deputy chief curator George Gurney, senior curators Virginia M Mecklenburg and Joann Moser, former Luce Foundation Centre curator George Speer, and curatorial assistant Elaine Yau present significant and lively contributions about these works. 91 4 colour illustrations. AUTHOR: Eleanor Jones Harvey, chief curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum; George Gurney, deputy chief curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator, painting and sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum; , senior curator, graphic arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum;George Speer, former Luce Foundation Center curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Elaine Yau, curatorial assistant Smithsonian American Art Museum. Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. SELLING POINTS: Presents colour plates and details of over 70 paintings by the leading names in 19th-century and 20th-century American art, collected by members of the American Art Forum Includes works by Sanford Robinson Gifford, Mary Cassatt, Louis Comfort Tiffany, George Bellows, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O'Keefe, James Earl Fraser, John Marin, Andrew Wyeth and David Hockney Publication accompanies an exhibition opening at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Spring 2007, as part of the Forum's twentieth anniversary celebrations Features major canvasses reflecting the growing interest in the art of the American West, including Georgia O'Keefe, Black Cross with Red Sky (1929), John Marin's Taos Canyon, New Mexico (1929), and James Earl Fraser's moving bronze sculpture, End of the Trail (1918) 91 colour illustrations