

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. Church’s friendships and interests-religion, history, literature, music, architecture, agriculture, and science-as well as his skills as a crafty entrepreneur are explored. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. 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. Frederic Edwin Church ( April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. 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. 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. 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 p 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. Carr, Frederic Edwin Church: Catalogue Raisonné of Works of Art at Olana State Historic Site (New York and Cambridge, Eng.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. Kelly et al., Frederic Edwin Church, (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1989) Kelly, Frederic Church and the National Landscape (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988)įranklin W.

Carr, The Early Landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church, 1845-1854 (Forth Worth, Tex.: Amon Carter Museum, 1987)įranklin W. cat., (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, in association with the National Collection of Fine Arts, 1966)įranklin W. Huntington, The Landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church (New York: G. He spent nearly every winter in Mexico, returning in the summer to Maine, where he had first painted in 1850, and to Olana, where the sky and sunsets seen from his property inspired his late oil sketches.ĭavid C. From 1880 until his death in 1900 (his wife had died in 1899), Church created few major works. His extensive travels in the Middle East in 1868–1869 deeply influenced his taste for Persian aesthetics, which are reflected integrally in the design and decoration of Olana, completed on that hilltop in 1872. In 1867, he purchased a hilltop with magnificent views across the Hudson River toward Catskill, N.Y. A second trip to South America in 1857 resulted in the equally sensational Heart of the Andes, 1859 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which was bought by a private collector for $10,000, the highest price then ever paid for a painting by a contemporary American artist.Ĭhurch married in 1860 and had six children. Niagara, 1857 (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) catapulted Church to fame. The dramatic landscapes and waterfalls he encountered there and later painted spurred him to visit the United States’ own Niagara Falls in 1856. In 1853 Church traveled to South America. The following year, at the age of twenty-three, he became the youngest Academician in the organization’s history. Because of his accomplishments, Church was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1848. Contemporary audiences were particularly impressed by the geologically and topographically accurate details in Church’s depictions of American wilderness and agrarian life. His landscapes, often suffused with religious or historical significance, had broad appeal.
#Frederic church professional#
To better position himself for professional success, Church moved to New York City in 1847. Church’s prodigious artistic talent developed rapidly during his two-year apprenticeship, as he created accomplished drawings and paintings of the Hudson River Valley and rural New England. Born into a wealthy and connected Hartford family, Church became the first and only student of the leading painter of the Hudson River School, Thomas Cole (1801–1848) in 1844.

Frederic Edwin Church was the preeminent landscape painter and most successful American artist of the mid-nineteenth century.
