This exhibition consists of approximately 40 works, spanning 100 years, and places emphasis on two strong aspects of the museum's collection: 19th century American landscape and 20th century American modernism. Among the earliest works in the exhibition is Autumn of about 1845 by Frederic E. Church, the most famous artist of the Hudson River School, which was part of the original bequest of August Heckscher. The most important late work is Indian Summer of 1941 by Arthur G. Dove, preeminent modernist, painted while he was living in Huntington, Long Island; it is noteworthy that the Heckscher Museum owns and is restoring the Dove house there.

Other highlights of the exhibition include Asher B. Durand's Keene Valley, c. late 1860's, Ralph Albert Blakelock's The Poetry of Moonlight, c. 1880-1890 and Thomas Moran's Hopi Village, 1916. Later works include Ernest Lawson's Night Scene, Long Island, c. 1924, Marsden Hartley's Garmisch-Partenkirchen #1, 1933-34, Joseph Stella's Water Lily and Florine Stettheimer's Portrait of Louis Bouché, 1923. The Stella and the Stettheimer as well as several other works are part of the recent major gift to the museum from the collection of D. Frederick Baker and the late Ronald Pisano. Also represented are Long Island painters Helen Torr and Esphyr Slobodkina.