Last chance for ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness’

The Fourth of July week will be the last chance for visitors to see “America Rising,” the final installment in the three-part exhibition “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness:
 American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery.”

In the exhibition, selections from the gallery’s renowned collection of American art have been used to illuminate the diverse and evolving American experience from the time of the settlements of the 17th century to the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.

“America Rising,” on view through July 8, looks at the physical and artistic expansion of the United States during the second half of the 19th century. The California gold rush encouraged westward migration, and the development of cross-country systems of communication, new canals, and railroads connected cities and facilitated the trade of goods and ideas. The exhibition concludes in America’s Gilded Age, a period marked by tremendous wealth, blatant political corruption, and extravagant materialism.

The Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; and 1-6 p.m. Sunday. It is closed on Monday and on major holidays (including July 4).

Exhibit poster earns honor

In related news, the Yale Art Gallery recently won The New England Museum Association’s 2012 Publication Award Competition in the “Posters” category in honor of its poster for “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”


The museum’s winning designed featured John Trumbull’s painting “Declaration of Independence” on one side and details about the exhibition on the other.