Exhibitions, Programs, and Events
Grounds Open for Free Every Day
February Sunday Salon
Sun, Feb 12 at 2 PM
Join us for It Is Wild and Untamed: Descriptions of the Land and the Original Stewards with Heather Bruegl, a public historian, activist, and decolonial education consultant. The event will take place in the New Studio at the Thomas Cole site.
Sunday Tours
Offered before and after each Sunday Salon in 2023
Join a 45-minute Sunday Indoor Guided Tour of the Main House with a knowledgeable Museum Guide to learn about the artist and early environmentalist Thomas Cole (1801-1848). In March, in honor of Women’s History Month, the special Feminist’s Guide to Cedar Grove tour will be offered, featuring the women that lived, labored, and made art here on the historic property.
Women, Land + Art
The 2023 year-long initiative presented by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site across programs, exhibitions, collections, and interpretation.
Private Guided Tours
Available by advance appointment
Take a private guided tour of the 1815 Main House and 1839 Old Studio. Availability is limited, so please plan ahead.
March Sunday Salon
Sun, Mar 26 at 2 PM
Join us for Exhibiting American Women Artists at The Baltimore Museum of Art with Virginia Anderson, Curator of American Art from the Baltimore Museum of Art. The event will take place in the New Studio at the Thomas Cole site.
A Feminist’s Guide to Cedar Grove
Sun, Mar 26 at 12 PM
In honor of Women’s History Month, the special Feminist’s Guide to Cedar Grove tour will be offered before the March Sunday Salon. Join this guided tour of the Main House featuring the women that lived, labored, and made art here on the historic property.
The Scholars’ Dinner
Mon, Apr 3
The Century Association in New York City
Join us for the fourth annual Scholars’ Dinner featuring the leading American art scholars of today and the emerging American art scholars of tomorrow: Linda Ferber, Director Emerita of the New-York Historical Society; Nancy Siegel, Professor of Art History at Towson University and co-curator of our 2023 special exhibition Women Reframe American Landscape; and Sophie Lynford, the Annette Woolard-Provine Curator of the Bancroft Collection at the Delaware Art Museum; and our 2023 Class of Cole Fellows.
April Sunday Salon
Sun, Apr 16 at 2 PM
Join the Class of 2023 Cole Fellows, Vicente Cayuela, Sofia Thieu D’Amico, Kristen Marchetti and Beth Wynne
for the presentation of their research. The event will take place in the New Studio at the Thomas Cole site.
The Pollinator Pavilion
by Mark Dion & Dana Sherwood
Visit the site-specific outdoor public artwork designed by internationally renowned artists. The Pavilion provides a fantastical architectural setting to encounter birds year-round while exploring a nurturing relationship with nature.
Hudson River School Art Trail
Step into a landscape painting with our program, the Hudson River School Art Trail, which provides maps and directions to visit the places in nature that Thomas Cole and other Hudson River School artists painted.
Walk along Catskill Creek
Visit the Mawignack Preserve – Cole’s favorite walking spot – just down the road and discover new outdoor interpretation organized by the Greene Land Trust in partnership with the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Greene County Historical Society, Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, and Scenic Hudson.
Visit Cole’s Gravesite
The gravestones of Thomas Cole, his wife Maria Bartow, and their family are located in the Catskill Village Cemetery, just down the street and walkable from the historic site.
Hudson River Skywalk
See America’s first canvas with a new scenic walkway connecting the Thomas Cole Site with Frederic Church’s Olana across the Hudson River.
Virtual 360 Explore
Virtually tour Thomas Cole’s historic Main House and Old Studio. Discover pop-out videos and find the artist’s original letters.
Collection Highlights
Browse our online Collection Highlights, a selection from over six hundred objects and two research archives. Many collection items are on view throughout the Cole Site interiors, in historic rooms, as well as within the rotating exhibition Mind Upon Nature: Thomas Cole’s Creative Process.
Perspectives
Digital content presenting new perspectives from curators, artists, and community leaders on Thomas Cole’s life and art from the 19th century to today.
Teacher Resources
Programs, lesson plans and activities for K-12 students that use American art to teach American history.
Virtual Gallery
Explore Thomas Cole’s paintings and writings with scholar analysis on our website explorethomascole.org.
Thomas Cole’s Story
Read Thomas Cole’s Story by the Penguin Random House author and illustrator Hudson Talbott.
Past Exhibitions
MARC SWANSON
A Memorial To Ice At The Dead Deer Disco
Jul 16-Nov 27
Thomas Cole National Historic Site
A new series of installations by Marc Swanson inspired by the artwork and writings of Thomas Cole (1801-1848). A Memorial to Ice is jointly presented at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and MASS MoCA. The companion exhibitions are curated by Denise Markonish, Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions at MASS MoCA.
Thomas Cole’s Studio
Memory & Inspiration
Apr 30-Oct 30
Thomas Cole National Historic Site
A new exhibition that reassembles many of the significant works that were in Thomas Cole’s studio when he died suddenly at the peak of his artistic talents. The project explores how Cole’s example so powerfully affected the evolution of art in the United States. The exhibition is curated is Franklin Kelly, Senior Curator and Christiane Ellis Valone Curator of American Paintings at the National Gallery of Art.
Cross Pollination
Heade, Cole, Church & Our Contemporary Moment
Jun 12-Oct 31, 2021
Presented across both the Thomas Cole National Historic Site & Frederic Church’s Olana
A collaborative exhibition of 19th-century and contemporary art exploring the theme of “cross pollination” in art and the environment.
Created by Thomas Cole National Historical Site, The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Its tour is organized by Crystal Bridges.
SHI GUORUI:
Ab/Sense-Pre/Sense
Curator: Kate Menconeri, Thomas Cole Site Curator
Sep 22-Dec 15, 2019
The exhibition features a new series of large-scale landscape photographs by the international contemporary artist Shi Guorui that pay homage to the landscapes and legacy of Thomas Cole. The exhibition is part of our annual series OPEN HOUSE: Contemporary Art in Conversation with Cole.
Thomas Cole’s Refrain:
The Paintings of Catskill Creek
Curator: H. Daniel Peck, John Guy Vassar, Jr., Professor Emeritus of English, Vassar College
May 4-Nov 3, 2019
The exhibition illuminates Thomas Cole’s Catskill Creek paintings, considered for the first time as an integral series.
The Art of Emily Cole
Curator: Amanda Malmstrom, 2019 Cole Fellow
March 2- Aug 11, 2019
The first solo exhibition of Emily Cole’s artwork on both paper and porcelain, revealing her exquisitely painted botanicals. Emily Cole was Thomas Cole’s daughter and the only one of his children to
become an artist.
Emily Cole, Untitled (detail), n.d., watercolor and pencil on paper, 7 5/16? x 10 5/16?.
Landmark
Curators: Kate Menconeri and Kathy Greenwood, Director, Art & Culture Program, Albany International Airport
Sep 29-Feb 25, 2019
The Thomas Cole Site and the Albany International Airport present a new multidisciplinary exhibition that features 10 contemporary visual artists and 7 writers whose works explore our relationship to the natural world, and share common ground with Thomas Cole’s greatest written work, Essay on American Scenery. The gallery is open daily from 7 am to 11 pm.
Lisa Sanditz, Fumigation Tents, 2016, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 54 x 70”, photograph courtesy the artist
SPECTRUM
Curator: Kate Menconeri, Thomas Cole Site Curator
Aug 14 – Nov 18, 2018
A contemporary art exhibition installed throughout the historic site as part of the ongoing series OPEN HOUSE: Contemporary Art in Conversation with Cole. The exhibition grew out of conversations between the Cole Site curator Kate Menconeri, the artist Kiki Smith, and exhibiting artists.
Painting: Place (Place), 2017, Jackie Saccoccio. Oil and mica on Linen, 79 x 90 in. Courtesy of the artist and Van Doren Waxter,
Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance
Curators: Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor in the History of Art at Yale, Jennifer Raab, Associate Professor in the History of Art at Yale, Sophie Lynford, Ph.D. candidate at Yale and Nicholas Robbins, Ph.D. candidate at Yale
May 1 – Nov 4, 2018
Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO
KIKI SMITH / “From the Creek”
Curator: Kate Menconeri, Thomas Cole Site Curator
Aug 12 – Nov 19, 2017
“Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills”
Curator: Kevin J. Avery, Ph.D., Senior Research Scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Apr 30 – Oct 29, 2017
Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO
“Thomas Cole: The Artist as Architect”
Curator: Annette Blaugrund, Ph.D., Independent Scholar, Author and Curator, and former Director of the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts
May 1 – Oct 30, 2016
JASON MIDDLEBROOK: “Nature Builds / We Cover”
Curator: Kate Menconeri, Thomas Cole Site Curator
Aug 14 – Oct 30, 2016
“River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home”
Curators: Stephen Hannock, Contemporary Artist and Jason Rosenfeld, Ph.D., Distinguished Chair and Professor of Art History at Marymount Manhattan College and Senior Writer and Editor-at-Large for the Brooklyn Rail
May 3-Nov 1, 2015
Photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO
Stanley Maltzman / “Thomas Cole’s Honey”
Curator: Kate Menconeri, Thomas Cole Site Curator
July 26- Oct 2, 2014
“Master, Mentor, master – Thomas Cole & Frederic Church”
Curators: John Wilmerding, Ph.D., Sarofim Professor of American Art, Emeritus, at Princeton University and former Senior Curator and Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Art
Apr 30 – Nov 2, 2014
“Albert Bierstadt in New York and New England”
Curator: Annette Blaugrund, Ph.D., Independent Scholar, Author and Curator, and former Director of the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts
May 1 – Nov 3, 2013
“Worlds Between: Landscapes of Louis Rémy Mignot”
Curator: Katherine E. Manthorne, Ph.D., Professor of American and Latin American Art at the CUNY Graduate Center, and former Research Center Head at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Apr 29 – Oct 28, 2012
Robert S. Duncanson “the spiritual striving of the freedman’s sons”
Curator: Joseph D. Ketner II, the Henry and Lois Foster Chair in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice at Emerson College, Boston
May 1 – October 30, 2011
“Remember the Ladies”
Curators: Nancy Siegel, Ph.D., Professor of Art History at Towson University and Jennifer Krieger, Managing Partner of Hawthorne Fine Art and Academic Scholar
May 2- Oct 31, 2010
“River Views of the Hudson River School”
Curator: Nancy Siegal, Ph.D., Professor of Art History at Towson University
May 2- Oct 31, 2009
“Thomas Cole’s Sketch Paintings: An Exploration of the Creative Process”
Curator: Elizabeth B. Jacks, Thomas Cole Site Executive Director
May 3 – Oct 26, 2008
“Asher B. Durand: Intimate Observations”
Curator: Lee Vedder, Ph.D., Independent Curator and former Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow in American Art at the New-York Historical Society
May 20 – Oct 28, 2007
“Jasper Cropsey: Interpreting Nature”
Curator: Elizabeth Stevens, former Thomas Cole Site Curator
May 7 – Oct 29, 2006
“George Inness: Paintings”
Curator: Elizabeth Stevens, former Thomas Cole Site Curator
May 1 – Oct 30, 2005
Support for the Thomas Cole Site programs and operations is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, National Park Service, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, The Bay & Paul Foundations, Enoch Foundation, the Warner Foundation, The Manitou Fund, Brown Foundation, a Humanities New York SHARP Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal American Rescue Plan, The Educational Foundation of America, The J. M. Kaplan Fund, Tianaderrah Foundation, and the Kindred Spirits Society of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.
The Program Endowment that supports educational programs at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this the programs do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
