This is the largest project thus far undertaken on Frederic Edwin Church:
a comprehensive scholarly catalogue of his works of art still at Olana State
Historical Site, his former home in upstate New York. Divided into sixteen
chronological sections, it covers 736 drawings, paintings, and prints, spanning
nearly sixty years of his life. The items, each of them illustrated in the
catalogue, range from doodles in his schoolboy textbooks and exercise books,
to student works done under Thomas Cole, to important studio paintings exhibited
during Church's lifetime, and pencil sketches and finished paintings executed
in Mexico as late as two years before his death in April 1900. The holdings
are most concentrated at the beginning of Church's career, between 1844 and
1850, and toward the end, between 1880 and 1898, but all phases of his travels
and his art are represented, including preparations for his major studio paintings.
"An expansive and beautifully presented anthology of the
art and the artists who pioneered the first native style of
American landscape painting...A perfect edition to personal,
academic, and community library Art History collections, Different
Views in Hudson River School Painting is very highly recommended
and informative reading." —Michael J. Carson, The
Midwest Book Review
The companion to the Cooper-Hewitt exhibition of Americas scenic
wonders, as seen through the eyes of three of its greatest 19th-century
artists. During the years following the Civil War, many artists,
including Homer, Church, and Moran, created images of Americas
scenic wonders and great landscape icons. These works, as well
as decorative art objects, popular literature, photographs,
and other ephemera helped to make the countrys landscape a source
of national pride and promoted landscape tourism. Frederic Church,
Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape
is a major exhibition mounted by the Cooper-Hewitt, National
Design Museum which will showcase, for the first time in more
than two decades, the museums extraordinary collection of more
than 2000 paintings and drawings, which encompasses the largest
grouping of Homer and Church objects in the world. Five original
essays will accompany the 200 illustrations.
Hudson River School paintings are among America's most admired
and well-loved artworks. Such artists as Thomas Cole, Frederic
Church, and Albert Bierstadt left a powerful legacy to American
art, embodying in their epic works the reverence for nature
and the national idealism that prevailed during the middle of
the nineteenth century. This book features fifty-seven major
Hudson River School paintings from the collection of the Wadsworth
Atheneum Museum of Art, recognized as the most extensive and
finest in the world. Gorgeously and amply illustrated, the book
includes paintings by all the major figures of the Hudson River
School. Each work is beautifully reproduced in full color and
is accompanied by a concise description of its significance
and historical background. The book also includes artists' biographies
and a brief introduction to American nineteenth-century landscape
painting and the Wadsworth Atheneum's unique role in collecting
Hudson River pictures.
Thomas Moran by Nancy K. Anderson, Thomas
P. Bruhn (Contributor), Joni L. Kinsey (Contributor), Anne Morand
(Contributor) – Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (October 20, 1997)
Moran's watercolors of the Yellowstone country so impressed
Congress that it established the second U.S. national park in
less than two months in 1872. Moran's subsequent monumental
landscape, The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, became one of
the most famous paintings of the nineteenth century, and Moran
enjoyed a prolific and successful career thereafter. Yet Anderson
implies in this exceptional companion to the first retrospective
exhibition of Moran's work that not enough about him is generally
available. So she and her colleagues present a whopping amount
of material--not just sterling reproductions on nonglossy stock
that resists finger-smudging but a four-chapter resumeof Moran's
life and career, notes to the colorplates that consist of nineteenth-century
reactions to his work and the literary passages that inspired
him, essays on his printmaking and publishing, a 96-page biochronology,
and appendixes, including, complete, the portfolio of Yellowstone
watercolors that wowed the public in 1876. Anderson hopes this
catalog only begins a future, extensive Moran bibliography,
but really, it is a library in itself. —Ray Olson
Sanford Robinson Gifford was a leading Hudson River School artist.
His love of nature first surfaced as a youth growing up in Hudson,
New York, and, together with his admiration for the works of
Thomas Cole, inspired him to become a landscape painter. Influenced
as well by J. M. W. Turner and by trips to Europe in the 1850s,
Gifford's art was termed "air painting," for he made
the ambient light of each scene-color saturated and atmospherically
enriched-the key to its expression. Gifford was a founder of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the time of his death, he
was so esteemed by the New York art world that the Museum mounted
an exhibition of his work-its first accorded an American artist-and
published a Memorial Catalogue that for nearly a century remained
the principal source on the artist. Now, to coincide with a
long-overdue exhibition of Gifford's work, an important new
book is being issued. This volume features essays examining
Gifford's position in the Hudson River School, his Catskill
and Adirondack subjects, his patrons, and his adventures as
a traveler both at home and abroad. More than seventy of the
artist's best-known sketches and paintings are discussed and
reproduced in color.
Twelve days after the onset of the American Civil War in April
of 1861, Frederic Edwin Church, the most successful American
landscape painter of his day, debuted his latest "Great
Picture"—a painting titled The North. Despite
favorable reviews, the painting failed to find a buyer. Faced
with this unexpected setback, Church added a broken mast to
the foreground and changed the work's title to The Icebergs.
He then shipped the painting to London, where it was finally
sold to an English railroad magnate and subsequently disappeared
from view for 116 years.
This beautiful book tells the fascinating story
of The Icebergs and provides a detailed
look at the cycle of fame, neglect, and resuscitation
of both this masterwork and Church's career.
In 1979, The Icebergs sold at auction
for $2.5 million, at the time the highest amount
ever paid for an American painting. The sale
coincided with an upswing in the popularity
and acclaim accorded to American landscape painting,
catalyzing the market for American art and contributing
to a revival in the prestige of Church and the
Hudson River School. Drawing on extensive interviews
with many of the people involved with the painting's
rediscovery, sale, and eventual donation to
the Dallas Museum of Art, the author considers
the way marketing has defined The Icebergs.
This book accompanies an exhibition at the Dallas
Museum of Art from September 8, 2002 until January
15, 2003.
The Hudson River School (Treasures of Art) by Trewin Copplestone –
Hardcover: 80 pages Publisher: Gramercy (August 17, 1999)
The so-called Hudson River School has a place
of special importance in the history of American
painting. Although there were many 'professional'
artists working in the early and developing
American society from the 17th to the 19th centuries,
most of them, apart from the many charming naive
practitioners, were itinerant portrait painters
or those who looked to Europe for their style
and subject matter. It was not until the early
19th century that artists began to consider
the landscape which surrounded them as an interesting
subject in itself; when they did, they perceived
a grandeur, spaciousness and quality of natural
beauty which filled them with awe and wonderment.
It was this opening of the eyes of their compatriots
to their natural heritage that these painters,
who have come to be known as the Hudson River
School, initiated. Although, in the first instance,
it was the area of the Hudson River stretching
northwards from New York that first entranced
them, as the American continent towards the
Rockies unfolded, the artists followed and produced
work that revealed a magnificence of scale—the
great lakes, the towering mountains. deep valleys
and gorges of the land in which they found themselves.
In this way, although the Hudson River was the
first area to exert its influence on these landscapists
and gave its name to them, their work spread
widely to encompass the whole land.
There was also another, transcendental, aspect
to their work. they recognized the hand of God
in their new environment and accordingly introduced
a sense of divine mission into their painting
which appealed to the adventurous religious
spirit of the early settlers. Through this,
their art acquired a new significance which
had previously been absent.
The story of the artists and their pictorial
crusade is included in this selective survey
which, of its nature, can only include a small
number of the very many who have been identified
with the Hudson River School.
This volume presents through their paintings
the major artists of the Hudson River School,
along with many lesser-known figures. Seventy-eight
full-page color illustrations of representative
work are supplemented with biographical sketches
and an extensive bibliography. John Driscoll's
introductory essay surveys the ideas, events,
and figures of the Hudson River School movement,
and explores the diversity of nineteenth-century
Romantic American landscape painting.
Watercolor images of Yellowstone Park painted in the early 1870s
by artist Thomas Moran shifted America's gaze westward. Published
as a portfolio of chromolithographs by Boston lithographer Louis
Prang, these brilliant reproductions--with a companion text
on Yellowstone geology by explorer Ferdinand Hayden--were the
first color images of our first national park widely available
to the general public. As such, they helped shape America's
growing fascination with the West.
The Yellowstone National Park portfolio, comprising nine images
of Yellowstone and six of other sites, is also now regarded
as the finest example of chromolithography ever produced. Yet
today these images are less well known than Moran's dramatic
oil paintings and are usually admired merely as curiosities
of an obsolete technology.
Joni Kinsey, a preeminent authority on Moran, shows that these
and other chromolithographs by the artist in fact had an important
place in American visual culture and were a vital part of the
artist's career. Thomas Moran's West reproduces this renowned
collection, along with two dozen other color plates and over
100 black-and-white illustrations, to recapture their impact
on the American imagination.
Chromolithography was outmoded by 1900 but represented an important
transition in American art. Whereas previously published images
of the West had been black-and-white engravings, Moran's chromolithographs
had the vivid beauty of high art but could be acquired by individuals
who couldn't afford originals. Today the prints are highly valued
by collectors, who will appreciate seeing them with related
field sketches and watercolors--and in some instances rare printer's
proofs from Joslyn Art Museum. Kinsey describes the making and
popularity of "chromos," chronicles the debates over
their artistic legitimacy, and tells how this medium competed
with other forms of picture-making in the late nineteenth century.
She also explores Moran's relationship with Prang and thoroughly
analyzes the Yellowstone images--including those held back from
publication.
Both a visual feast and an authoritative treatise, Thomas Moran's
West gives us breath-taking images of unspoiled wilderness as
it sheds new light on how artistic portrayals of the West contributed
to our national identity.
This book features 167 photographs, 50 in full color.
Frederic
Church by John K. Howat – Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (November 11, 2005)
The life of landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826–
1900) encompassed an expansive period in United States history,
when the nation’s commercial, diplomatic, cultural, and
scientific achievements blossomed. This lavishly illustrated
book—the only comprehensive study of the artist available—describes
Church’s life and career and details the ways in which
the artist played a part in America’s development during
the nineteenth century. John K. Howat, a distinguished scholar
of American landscape painting, discusses the many talents of
Frederic Church while also explaining the rich complexities
of his major works.
One of Thomas Cole’s illustrious pupils at an early age,
Church became a key figure associated with the Hudson River
School. His adventurous international travels and the paintings
that resulted from his expeditions brought him far-reaching
attention, and his pictures often commanded record-breaking
sums. Church’s friendships and interests—religion,
history, literature, music, architecture, agriculture, and science—as
well as his skills as a crafty entrepreneur are explored. Beautiful
reproductions of Church’s extraordinary home Olana, which
one can visit today in eastern New York, are also featured.
For admirers of the Hudson River School, American landscape
painting, and the history of nineteenth-century America, Frederic
Church is an invaluable book to own.
The painters who came to be known as the Hudson River School—Thomas
Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Edwin Church, Jasper Cropsey,
Sanford Robinson Gifford, and others—found inspiration
in our young country's natural wonders and were the first to
paint many of its still-wild vistas. As America was settled
and the wilderness receded, their successors—most notably
Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran—carried their quest for
the sublime to the Far West, communicating its breathtaking
grandeur in brilliant views of Rocky Mountain peaks, roaring
waterfalls, and vast canyons. Within a single generation these
artists established the dramatic approach to American landscape
painting that is celebrated in this stirringly beautiful book.
The freshness of their vision, the intensity of their invention,
and the energy of their execution were all born of the urgency
these artists sensed in the life of America itself.
Published to accompany a major transatlantic
exhibition, American Sublime rejoices in America
the Beautiful as seen in some of the country's
most glorious landscape paintings. It contains
a fully illustrated catalogue of all the paintings
in the exhibition, with more than one hundred
color plates, including three gatefolds. Biographies
of the artists are included, and thoughtful
and elegantly written essays cast new light
on their ambitions and achievements. The lucid
text places American landscape painting in the
context of the international art world and of
the European landscape tradition. And it explores
ideas of national identity and empire in America,
looking in particular at how these landscapes,
whether real or imagined, reflect Americans'
hopes and fears for their country.
As a tribute to some of our most important American
artists and the land that inspired them, this
stunningly illustrated book will have a deep
and wide appeal.
Thomas
Cole: Drawn to Nature Paperback: 112
pages Publisher: Albany Institute of History
and Art; 1st edition (November 15, 1993)
Provides a new look at the founder of the Hudson
River School of American landscape painting.
The
Life and Works of Thomas Cole by Louis
Legrand Noble, Elliot S. Vesell (Editor) –
Paperback, 400 pages 1 Pbk Ed edition (August
1997) Black Dome Press
During his peak popularity in the 1820s -1840s,
artists flocked to New York's Catskill Mountains
and Hudson Valley to confront the wilderness
and emulate Cole's vision, and America's first
indiginous art movement was born—the Hudson
River School of landscape painting.
Thomas
Cole by Earl A. Powell – Hardcover,
144 pages (October 1990) Harry N Abrams 111
illustrations, 67 in full color, 91/2 x 11"
Thomas Cole (1801-1848) is widely considered
the founder of the popular Hudson River School
of painting. Cole, who emigrated to the United
States from England in 1819, awakened a passion
for landscape that would characterize American
painting throughout the 19th century and change
the way Americans, and the world, viewed the
young nation.
In a series of breathtaking canvases, painted
principally in the Catskill Mountains, Cole
portrayed vast spaces, awesome horizons, and
vibrant color. Earl A. Powell III, director
of the National Gallery of Art, Washington,
traces Cole's development and explores the Romantic
theories that guided his thinking and informed
his vision. Superb color reproductions bring
Cole's paintings to life, revealing the America
that once was.
In these days of sensationalism, the images
of the past often seem shadowy and rather vague.
This work explores a period in American art
and culture when both were infused with a strong
sense of righteousness and the certainty that
the artist must celebrate nature and the deity.
The chapter headings--from "Seeing"
to "Virtue," "Chivalry"
to "Christendom"--echo the ideas expressed
in the paintings, contrasting with what art
critic Cooper sees as a cultural crisis in our
times. Unfortunately, this work comes across
as preachy and sentimental, perhaps because
of the zealous morality of the time it examines.
Still, the works of art, gathered from a wide
variety of holdings, are an excellent record
of a splendid age of landscape, and Cooper should
be commended for preserving and evaluating these
important records of a past era. One could only
wish that the sense of moral judgment did not
overwhelm the critical eye. Recommended for
academic libraries and all libraries focusing
on American art history. —Paula Frosch,
Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York Copyright
2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Named for a fortress treasure-house in ancient
Persia, Olana was the home of Frederic Edwin
Church (1826-1900), one of America's most important
artists, a student of Thomas Cole, and a major
figure in the Hudson River School of landscape
painting. Built high on a hill between 1870
and 1891, Olana holds lordly sway over sweeping
vistas of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson
River. Today, Olana is a New York State Historic
Site visited annually by over 150,000 people,
making it one of the most popular tourist destinations
in the Hudson Valley and upstate New York. Called
by Church "the Center of the World,"
Olana's Persian-style house and 250 acres of
romantically-designed grounds are a personal
vision of harmony between man and the American
landscape—a "perfect Eden of picturesque
beauty, " as one 1891 visitor described
it. This book tells Olana's remarkable story.
Frederic Church (1826-1900), who gained international
renown for paintings such as Niagara (1857),
Heart of the Andes (1859), Twilight in the Wilderness
(1860), and The Icebergs (1861), was inspired
by his extensive travel and study. His work
was also informed by his appreciation of a new
visual medium. Fire & Ice, a selection from
the several thousand photographs and daguerreotypes
Church collected at Olana, his Orientalist home
on the Hudson River, provides insight into the
interests and taste of one of nineteenth- century
America's greatest painters.
Church was a boy of thirteen when the invention
of photography was announced to the world. As
a painter, he was of the first generation to
grow up with photographs and consider them a
useful adjunct to his work. Church collected
photographs and daguerreotypes by early pioneers
of the art, including Désiré Charnay,
Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins. His
collection appears to have served largely as
a source of inspiration and armchair travel,
reminding him of favorite locations and details
of architecture, culture, and landscape.
In Fire & Ice, images from Church's
collection are shown along with a selection
of his own oil sketches, drawings, and archival
materials. Some of the photographs are devoted
to the varied geographical interests reflected
in Church's art and travels: Central and South
America, the Middle East, and the polar North.
Others served as visual reference for the design
and construction of Olana. Lavishly illustrated,
Fire and Ice shows how the photographs
in Church's collection echoed the principal
stages of the painter's career.
Magnificent, dramatic, sweeping, fantastic,
poetic, powerful: All of these describe the
paintings of Frederic Edwin Church. The National
Gallery's exhibit of Church's finest works traces
his career as a leading artist of the Hudson
River School, America's preeminent 19th-century
landscape painters.
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Frederic
Edwin Church: Catalogue Raisonne of Works
of Art at Olana State Historic Site 
Different
Views in Hudson River School Painting
George
Inness and the Visionary Landscape
Hudson
River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum
of Art
Thomas Moran
Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford
The
Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Church's Arctic Masterpiece
The Hudson River School
In
Search of the Promised Land: Paintings by Frederic
Edwin Church
All
That Is Glorious Around Us: Paintings from the
Hudson River School
Thomas
Moran's West: Chromolithography, High Art, And
Popular Taste
Frederic
Church
American
Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880
Thomas
Cole: Drawn to Nature 
The
Life and Works of Thomas Cole
Thomas
Cole
Knights
of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the
Moral Landscape
The
Last Masterpiece: Frederic Church and Olana
Fire
& Ice: Treasures from the Photographic Collection
of Frederic Church at Olana
The
Hudson River School: American Landscape Artists
Frederick Edwin Church
Color, NTSC 
