Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art

Explore the guitar as visual subject, enduring symbol, and storyteller's companion.

Strummed everywhere from parlors and front porches to protest rallies and rock arenas, the guitar also appears far and wide in American art. Its depictions enable artists and their human subjects to address topics that otherwise go untold.

Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art is the catalogue of its namesake exhibition, which launched at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in October 2022. The book explores the instrument's symbolism in American art from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Chapters address how the guitar has been depicted in American art through the lenses of race, gender, cultural storytelling, aesthetics, politics, and cold, hard cash.

Featuring 273 full-color illustrations selected from the exhibition, Storied Strings is an absorbing history of how guitars figure prominently into the visual stories Americans tell about themselves, their identities, and their aspirations.