"Noble Dreams & Simple Pleasures," which opened last weekend at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is being billed as the first of its kind — the first exhibition of "pre-modernist" American art assembled entirely from local collections.

So let’s acknowledge whatever populist resentment may arise from certain quarters: Yes, some Minnesotans have the wherewithal and/or good fortunes to own some pretty swell art. The roughly 150 works on display include names of artists most of us recognize: Winslow Homer, George Innes, John Singer Sargent, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and many others.

It’s a lovely show — not grandiose, but savored, nicely distilled, and altogether pleasing. Thirty-one collectors loaned the pieces, most of them paintings. American art before modernism generally means work from the 19^th century into the early 20^th, but there’s a nice variety to be found in those roughly six-score years and it has been graciously organized by Sue Canterbury, the MIA’s associate curator of paintings.

(Here's a slide show with commentary by Canterbury.)

The themes include itinerate portraiture, labeled "folk art," landscapes (including still life and genre), expatriate artists, American impressionism and an unfamiliar genre (at least to me) called "tonalism," which appears to be impressionism without all the voluptuous French flash. There’s also an area representing Minnesota painters, including almost an entire room dedicated to St. Paul native Alexis Fournier (1865-1948).

Those looking for Minnesota will find it. There’s Seth Eastman’s 1848 painting of "The Falls of St. Anthony" (the exhibit also has a really nice selection of Eastman’s small-sized watercolors) and Barton Stone Hays’ painting of "First Mills on the Mississippi and Spirit Island." Other Mississippi River paintings include a panorama view of the "Mississippi at Winona" by Graton Tyler Brown (1894), and a fabulous, otherworldly view of an enormous river vista at Dubuque by Alfred Thompson Bricher. I spent 10 minutes gazing at the latter picture, which seemed to epitomize how civilization shrivels before nature.

For history buffs, there are two views of old Ft. Snelling (Fournier again) and a very interesting depiction of Little Crow addressing his Dakota brethren before the 1951 treaty signing at Traverse des Sioux in St. Peter.

If you go, plan to spend a long time with the painting that greets you and is the exhibition’s signature image: Ammi Phillips’ "Portrait of Catharina van Keuren," a masterpiece of graphic directness that puts the lie to the notion that itinerate portrait painters were less-than-skilled hacks.

The exhibition runs through May 3 in MIA’s Target Gallery. Admission is $8, though free for MIA members. More information  here.