ARTnews and Art in America have published a list of the 100 greatest artworks about America, timed to the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary. The list spans from an 18th-century painting of a Founding Father to a 21st-century video essay on anti-Black racism, including works that address settler colonialism, enslavement, the Civil War, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights Movement. Artists hail from the US, Korea, Moldova, Iraq, Chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, and Mexico, and the selection was debated over a year by editors through meetings and Slack discussions.
This list matters because it reframes American art history as a multiplicity of perspectives rather than a singular narrative, directly engaging with the political moment of contested national identity. By including immigrant and non-US-born artists, the editors challenge narrow definitions of who gets to represent America, making the list a critical intervention in ongoing debates about belonging, representation, and whose stories are told in museums. The ranking process itself, built on debate and disagreement, mirrors the democratic ideals the list seeks to explore.