Newport: The Artful City is a richly illustrated portrait of Newport, Rhode Island as a work of urban art, from colonial times to the present, both documented and celebrated in the maps, paintings, photographs, poetry and prose of renowned artists and writers.  It includes essays by David J. Silverman, Professor of History, George Washington University, Edward E Andrews, Associate Professor of History and Classics, Providence College, and Eileen Warburton, Independent Scholar.

As one of the most historically intact cities in North America, Newport has a cultural and architectural heritage of national significance. Each of the city’s districts has its own distinct character with street plans and buildings revealing the political, religious, commercial and artistic forces that have shaped Newport through the ages. Stately Colonial squares and bustling wharves, picturesque Victorian villas and scenic drives, opulent Gilded Age palaces for the few and electric streetcars for the many, and preservation movements to honor the past and modernist schemes for a metropolis of the future all tell stories of urban beauty and controversy, of eras of lavish building, urban decay and extraordinary revival.

By John Tschirch. Published by D Giles Limited with the Newport Historical Society, 2020. 240 pages, hardcover.