By: Timothy Cahill

Sunday, September 19, 2004

 

“Do you know that I have got a new painting-room?” wrote Thomas Cole to fellow painter Asher B. Durand near the end of 1839. “It answers pretty well … and being removed from the noise and bustle of the house, is really charming.”

 

Cole’s enthusiasm for his new work space came at a time when the artist was perhaps the most highly regarded American painter of his time. The studio, part of a much larger storage barn, is just steps from the main house at Cedar Grove, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill.

 

As the latest phase of a long-term project to preserve the place where American landscape painting was born, the “Storehouse Studio” has undergone a complete restoration and will open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3.

 

Cedar Grove consists of the painter’s 1815 three-story Federal-style house, 3 1/2 acres of grounds and outbuildings. Cole was the leader of the artistic movement called the Hudson River School. To have his work space intact and returned to its original condition marks a significant milestone in American cultural history.

 

“In many ways, this is the most important building (on the site),” observes Elizabeth Jacks, executive director of Cedar Grove. “If you start from the premise that the most important thing about Thomas Cole is his painting, then it follows that the most important building is the place that he painted. The house tells the story of his life and how he lived, but the studio tells the story of his work, of how he worked and where he worked.”

 

Among the masterpieces Cole produced in the 20-by-20-foot space is his four-part painting “The Voyage of Life,” perhaps his best-known work.

 

The $450,000 restoration began in February. Following Cole’s death in 1848, the studio was used as a storage shed, an antiques shop and finally a studio apartment. Re-creating the studio involved removing 20th-century materials and ripping out a makeshift loft to restore a ceiling nearly 12 feet high. Timbers salvaged from old barns were used to repair rotting infrastructure beams, and antique bricks brought in to rebuild interior masonry walls.

 

The studio is furnished with Cole’s materials, including his easels, a paint box and brushes, plaster casts and reference books. Period materials like those the artist was known to have used, including a camera obscura and magic lantern (an early slide projector), are also included.

 

“It adds a whole new dimension to understanding the man,” says Jacks of the studio. “You can get a lot of information from what we have. Cole was not a wealthy man — this was a space in a barn.

 

“The paintings he was working on were often more than 6 feet wide, he had to take his canvases off the stretchers to get them through the door,” Jacks adds. “And you can imagine what it was like in the winter. There’s a fireplace at one end, but Hudson Valley winters get cold. For me, I get a sense of his perseverance.”

 

All Times Union materials copyright 1996-2005, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.

 

By: Bonnie Langston, Freeman staff

01/21/2005

The next Sunday salon at the Catskill home of Thomas Cole, founder of the famed 19th-century Hudson River School of painting, will be led by a man who learned of the artist a relatively short time ago and in a rather unusual venue – a New York City subway stop.

The presenter is Manhattan’s David Barnes, and the image he saw a decade ago on a poster in the subway was of Cole’s “The Picnic,” then part of a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. When Barnes saw the show, its impact changed his life.

“I can’t even tell you how powerful that was, he said in a telephone interview from his office at J.P. Morgan Investments in Brooklyn.

“I said, ‘That’s it. I want to learn everything there is to know about this guy.”

Barnes set out to do that, and as he rattles off dates of paintings, details of exhibits, information about the style and influence of the Hudson River School and all kinds of other minutia, one suspects he has either arrived or at least come very close to his goal. Barnes’ interest in Cole led him to become a member of Cedar Grove’s board of advisors as well as a docent at the New-York Historical Society. He led the first salon of the year at Cole’s home earlier this month, talking about the painter’s series masterpieces “The Course of Empire” – in the collection of the above-mentioned historical society – and “The Voyage of Life,” both created at the height of Cole’s career.

In the next salon, Feb. 13, Barnes will explore Cole’s influence on other artists by way of a slide lecture.

The program has been increased to two sessions, 2 and 3:30 p.m., because of the standing-room-only crowd at this year’s initial event.

“For a winter Sunday, it turned out to be fantastic,” said Barry Hencks, a spokesperson and volunteer at Cedar Grove. Hencks said he counted nearly 45 vehicles in the parking lot, making the recent presentation at the salon – in its second year – the largest off-season event at the historical site.

That is a major change for the 1815 Federal brick home that had been allowed to decay for two decades, leaving it with a crumbling porch, caved-in roof, peeling paint and a flooded basement.

Restoration was far enough along in the spring of 2001 for the home’s first major opening, in celebration of the bicentennial of Cole’s birth.

A year ago, Elizabeth Jacks came on as director, and a search is underway for the site’s first educational director. In addition, Cole’s renovated “Old Studio” opened to the public fewer than four months ago.

Barnes, distraught by the home’s earlier disrepair, joined forces more than four years ago with others to further aid its rebirth. Like second-generation Hudson River School artist Jasper Cropsey, who visited Cole’s home in 1850, two years after the painter’s death, Barnes has found that Cole’s essence remains.

“Artists talked about this feeling for years after he died,” Barnes said. “His spirit just pervades.”

It certainly touched others in the Hudson River School. Frederic Edwin Church, whose home Olana is a short distance from Hudson, was most influenced by Cole, Barnes said.

“He was Cole’s first and most prominent student. Church was 18 years old, a young kid,” he said. “He really became the rock star of his day. For his ‘Heart of the Andes,’ people lined up around the block to see it (for 25 cents each at Lyrique Hall in New York City).”

At least 12,000 visitors eventually viewed the mammoth work – 66 1/8 by 119 1/4 inches – which they viewed with theater glasses. Visitors to the salon in February will see a slide image of the painting now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Like Cole, the younger man portrayed both geological and botanical forms in exacting detail, Barnes said. But unlike his mentor Church tended to represent an entire series in one painting, a “visual feast” known for its profusion of detail and range of atmosphere.

Also unlike Cole, Church lived in an era in which landscapes were gaining more respect. For instance, Barnes said in the early 1840s, a few years before Cole’s death, 1 out of 10 works exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York City were landscapes. A decade later, landscapes dominated, he said.

That does not mean Cole’s work went unappreciated. He made a living from his paintings. And works like “The Voyage of Life” gained much attention.

“Artists loved it. People responded to it,” Barnes said.

But the work was exhibited only a few times. For one thing, there was little opportunity to show art during Cole’s lifetime.

The first permanent art gallery in the United States, The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn., opened in 1844, four years before Cole’s death. Cole’s “Course of the Empire,” was shown there, and Barnes said today the museum has one of the best collections of Hudson River School paintings.

He said, too, that he is grateful for that fateful day when he glimpsed an image of Cole’s work at a New York City subway station. And he enjoys telling visitors to Cedar Grove all about it.

“I came to love Cole probably the way that he would have wanted – through his art,” he said.

 

©Daily Freeman 2005 Originally found at http://www.dailyfreeman.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13781821&BRD=1769&PAG=461&dept_id=74969&rfi=8

By SUSAN CATTO

Enjoying the Hudson River School

We want to see some of the sights that theHudson RiverSchoolpainted, if any of those places still exist. Can you suggest an itinerary, book or pamphlet that would guide us?-LeonoreLevit,Wilmette,Ill.

Considered the nation’s first school of painting, theHudson RiverSchoolencompasses more than 70 artists of the early and mid 19th century known for their realistic landscapes of theHudson RiverValley, theCatskill Mountainsand other locations. The time is right to follow in their footsteps: This month, the National Park Service (with several groups) opened Phase 1 of theHudson RiverSchoolArtTrail, a self-guided tour of seven sites featured in paintings.

Anchoring the tour are the former homes of Thomas Cole (1801-48), considered to be the group’s founder, and Frederic Church (1826-1900), one of its best-known artists. Cedar Grove, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 218 Spring Street, Catskill, (518) 943-7465, lies at the foot of theCatskill Mountainson the western side of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. Across the river, Church’s former home, the Olana State Historic Site, on Route 9G, Hudson, (518) 828-0135, is one of the region’s most popular destinations, featuring dramatic Persian architecture, lush grounds and river and mountain views.

According to Elizabeth Jacks, director of the Cole site, visiting all seven sites takes at least a day. Some are accessible by car and others by walking trails. “The sites that are the most remote will give you the most rewarding views,” Ms. Jacks said.

The new trail brochure includes maps as well as reproductions of the paintings. It is available at sites along the route or by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Post OfficeBox 426,Catskill,N.Y.12414.

At the New York State Tourism site, www.iloveny.com, you can click on Travel Ideas, then Cultural Tourism, and find a list of 22 sites whereHudson RiverSchoolworks are on view and where the artists lived and painted. Among the best vantage points: Fort Putnam and Trophy Point at the United States Military Academy at West Point, (845) 938-2638; Kaaterskill Falls, Route 23A, Haines Falls; and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, (845) 437-5632, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, which has about 25 paintings from the Hudson River School on display at any time.

For hikers, a new book, “Catskill Mountain House Trail Guide: In the Footsteps of theHudson RiverSchool,” by Robert A.Gildersleeve, (Black Dome Press, $16.95 ), includes period illustrations and maps to painting sites.

Authors: Patricia Harris and David Lyon, GLOBE CORRESPONDENTS

Date: July 26, 2006

Page: E8

Section: Travel

CATSKILL, N.Y. In the typical Hudson River School painting, masses of cumulus clouds rise above an outsize vista of river and mountains. We always figured that those scenes were embellished by artistic license until we visited the painters’ haunts where the northern Catskill Mountains meet the Hudson River Valley.

As we crossed the Hudson on the high bridge at Castleton, the scenery was in our faces. We looked downriver past Rattlesnake and Coxsackie islands, and saw heaps of cumulus congestus percolating over the rippling spine of the distant Catskill ridges. The cult of American landscape began here when Thomas Cole started sketching and painting the wilderness near Catskill village in 1825. “Landscape hadn’t been `done’ yet,” guide Erica Benton explained on a tour of Cole’s home and studio, Cedar Grove. “He created a type of art that Americans could call their own.”

The yellow, Federal-style home features a wraparound veranda with sweeping views of Cole’s beloved Catskills. The tour progresses from the parlor where Cole was married in 1836 (his wife’s uncle owned the house) to the upstairs bedroom where he died in 1848 at 47. When the site opened as a museum in 2001, curators chose not to install artificial light in his studio on the property. “The light you see,” Benton said, gesturing to the large north windows, “was the light he painted by.”

Cedar Grove is the starting point of the Hudson River School Art Trail that ranges from artists’ homes to vistas that became touchstones of the heroic, ultimately patriotic style of landscape painting. The scenes vary in accessibility from roadside views to short walks to modestly challenging hikes. (Cedar Grove hands out a driving tour brochure.)

The logical base for the tour is Catskill village, a 19th-century river trade center on the rebound. Vacant storefronts still mar Main Street, but art galleries, antiques dealers, restaurants, and decor shops host evening wine receptions on the second Saturday of each month (www.mainstreetcatskill.com). The Community Theatre (www.thecommunity theatre.com) runs an independent film festival on Wednesday nights, which can be packaged with dinner at the ambitious Bell’s Cafe a few doors down. On Saturday mornings, the former ice warehouse at The Point, where Catskill Creek reaches the Hudson, becomes a farmers’ and artisans’ market with live entertainment.

Cole may have launched the Hudson River School movement, but his protege, Frederic Edwin Church, carried the celebration of nature to new heights. Literally. Among Church’s first sketches were long views of the river from the formidable eastern bank opposite Cedar Grove. Church built a farmhouse cottage on land adjacent to that bluff, and when he eventually purchased the hilltop, he constructed a fanciful Moorish palace, Olana, to drink in the views. (See related story on Page E7.) He was not above tidying up those views, even creating a lake that, as seen from his porch, seems to nestle in a distant bend in the Hudson. Olana is closed for renovations this year (Church’s paintings normally hung at Olana are on display in Maine at the Portland Museum of Art through Sept. 10), but the interpretive landscape tour touches on the salient points of how Church bent nature to his will.

Nature isn’t always so pliant. Torrential late-June rains washed out the highway (Route 23A) that visitors would normally drive to follow the Hudson art trail. A consultation with State Police revealed that there’s a scenic back route around the closure: Route 23 over the north side of Catskill Mountain, then Route 296 south. (Call State Police for updates at 518-622-8600.) The bypass adds about 20 miles to the drive, but it’s worth the time for dramatic scenery and the opportunity to detour through the resort village of Windham and on to Windham Vineyard & Winery (www.windhamvineyard.com) for a tasting on the deck amid the vines.

Although Route 296 connects to Route 23A west of the washout, we still couldn’t reach one of the most famous subjects of Hudson River School painters the view through Kaaterskill Clove (local parlance for a mountain notch) to 260-foot Kaaterskill Falls. Floods have ravaged both the road and the foot trail through the notch. But we did reach the less picturesque but still dramatic top of the falls by following County Route 18 (North-South Lake Road) to Laurel House Road, where there’s a parking lot at the end. Although the main trail (straight ahead) was closed because of erosion, a creekside trail leads about a half mile to the dizzying head of the highest waterfall in New York.

County Route 18 terminates at the North-South Lake Campground. In 1825, Cole sketched around North and South lakes (now joined). Those sketches evolved into his first breakthrough landscape paintings, including the famous “Lake with Dead Trees.” Although the area was remote when Cole visited, it’s now an active campground and recreation area within the Catskill Forest Preserve. Families toss softballs and horseshoes and children scamper in and out of the muddy water at North Lake Beach. But the deep forest, rocky hills, and overlooks are still there.

Prepared with walking sticks and sturdy shoes, we set out on the blue-blazed Escarpment Trail to see the heights. After scrambling up a clot of boulders about a quarter mile into the woods, we spied a yearling doe grazing along the trail. She looked up, stepped a few feet into the woods, and went back to chewing. We stared a moment, then kept on walking to the high ledges.

When Cole wrote his manifesto on landscape painting in 1835, he observed, “The most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive characteristic of American scenery is its wildness.” We walked out onto the vertigo-inducing ledge at Artist’s Rock, where Cole often sketched, and observed a wooded valley spread out in the distance more than 1,000 feet below just like a Hudson River School painting.

All that was missing was a frame.

Contact Patricia Harris and David Lyon, Cambridge-based freelance writers, at harris.lyon@verizon.net.

NORTHERN CATSKILLS (N.Y.) ITINERARY

FRIDAY

2 p.m. Sound sleep

Carl’s Rip Van Winkle Motor Lodge

810 Route 23B, Leeds

518-943-3303

www.ripvanwinklemotorlodge.com

Many families come for the week to the 30 housekeeping cabins, but the 14 fresh and well-kept motel rooms rent by the night. Family-run mini-resort has playground, barbecues, picnic areas, and 160 acres of meadows and woods. $75-$90.

3 p.m. Birth of a movement

Cedar Grove

218 Spring St., Catskill

518-943-7465

www.thomascole.org

Home and studio of Thomas Cole vividly re-creates the spot where the painter saw America anew. Guided tour $7, Friday-Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., through October.

7 p.m. Waterfront grazing

Creekside Restaurant

162 West Main St., Catskill

518-943-6522

Huge burgers, racks of ribs, large steaks, and sandwiches available indoors or on deck overlooking marina on Catskill Creek. $6-$20.

SATURDAY

12:30 p.m. Fuel up

The Catskill Mountain Country Store & Restaurant

5510 Route 23 (Main Street), Windham

518-734-3387

You’ll be hard-pressed not to share your deli sandwich or burger with the friendly cats on the outdoor deck near the farm animal “looking zoo.” $7-$11.

2 p.m. Scale the heights

North-South Lake Campground

County Route 18, Hainesville

518-589-5058

www.dec.state.ny.us

Hiking trails reach aeries favored by Hudson River School painters. Swimming beach and boat rentals. Parking and day use fee $6 per car.

7 p.m. Country fare

Ursula’s Logsider Cafe

800 Route 23B, Leeds

518-943-2581

Hugely popular “country bistro” serves ample portions of diner food, including meatloaf and house specials of smoked chicken and ribs. $9-$13.

SUNDAY

10 a.m. Morning glory

Bell’s Cafe

387 Main St., Catskill

518-943-4070

Keith and Yael McMurrow’s snazzy in-town bistro does popular weekend brunch with Middle Eastern accents such as roast lamb panini with grilled vegetables and harissa. $7-$10.

11 a.m. Last sights

Thompson Street Cemetery, Catskill

Before leaving town, pay final respects to Thomas Cole’s grave in hilltop cemetery at junction of Thompson and Spring streets.

 

2024

Five Objects That Make You Consider the Great Beyond

Priya Chhaya, October 15, 2024

Guests at the Main House where Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and wife Maria Bartow Cole (1813-1884) lived and died have often reported strange occurrences over the years—often in the bedroom. The room contains several objects connected to the couple’s life and guests report that the room often smells of old, fragrant roses…. Read the full article here.

Native Prospects

Jennifer Kabat, October 4, 2024

At the historic house of Hudson River School–founder Thomas Cole, contemporary works by Indigenous artists present alternative worldviews of landscape and place…. Read the full article here.

Thomas Cole Visits Prophetstown

Sierra Holt, September 27, 2024

Although the artist’s work will always hold this oversight, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site at Cole’s nineteenth-century home and studio, Cedar Grove, in Catskills, New York, seeks to bring Indigenous perspectives into the museum’s gallery space. One such initiative is Alan Michelson: Prophetstown, an exhibition on view until December 1…. Read the full article here.

19 Real Locations That Inspired Famous Paintings

Nick Mafi, September 27, 2024

Cole immortalized the American landscape during a time when the industrial revolution was plundering natural resources. Cole’s paintings, including Kaaterskill Falls, can be viewed as manifestos in which the artist poses a question to all Americans: Is the divine power of nature or the manmade prophecy of capitalism the viable path for our young nation? … Read the full article here.

Your Guide to Art Excursions Outside NYC in Fall 2024

August 26, 2024

Taking its title from the Shawnee community founded in 1808 in resistance to settler colonialism, this exhibition weaves together works by Alan Michelson (Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River) in a textual, fictional, historical, and visual tapestry of Indigenous relationships to land…. Read the full article here.

Midday Magazine: Let’s hear it for the Hudson River School!

Ralph Gardner Jr, August 10, 2024

What may be the final piece of the Thomas Cole Historic Site puzzle fell into place in recent weeks with the opening of a new visitor’s center. You’re familiar with new car smell. Well, I’m here to tell you there’s also such a thing as spanking new building smell. The facility somehow manages to be modest, modern and majestic at the same time and like any such self-respecting public structure these days boasts its environmental bonafides…. Read the full article here.

The Roundtable: Cole Center opens at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Joe Donahue, August 2, 2024

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site has a new visitors center that transforms how people experience the national historic landmark, orienting them toward the Catskill Mountains that so inspired the artist and early environmentalist Thomas Cole…. Listen to the full episode here.

Stephen Shadley Crafts a Warm Welcome for a Catskills Historic Site

Alia Akkam, July 31, 2024

On July 22, a ceremonial ribbon-cutting unveiled the Cole Center, the landmark’s stand-alone visitor hub designed by AD100 interior and architectural designer Stephen Shadley. The multipurpose space will host visitor orientation and a gift shop and is designed to accommodate events, talks, student groups, and creative activities. Shadley, a member of the board of trustees of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, drew inspiration from Cole’s architectural designs when devising the new structure…. Read the full article here.

Five Museum Shows to Visit During Your Late Summer Travels

Murray Whyte, July 12, 2024

In the spring, the Museum of Fine Arts announced that it had commissioned Alan Michelson, a Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, to craft a sculptural response to “Appeal to the Great Spirit”… those seeking a notional preview can consult this solo exhibition of Michelson’s at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in the Catskills…. Read the full article here.

The Campus and ‘Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape’ at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

July 3, 2024

At once bold and graceful, “Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape,” an exhibition pairing Thomas Cole’s work with that of Indigenous contemporary artists, serves as a corrective as well as a provocation… Read the full article here.

Exhibit review: Pairing works by Thomas Cole with contemporary Indigenous artists

William Jaeger, June 26, 2024

What really brings the spirit of the show forward are the contemporary works by Indigenous artists, some directly addressing the exclusion of Indigenous people from the land (scape)…. Read the full article here.

Thomas Cole’s Landscape Painting Through an Indigenous Lens

Scott Manning Stevens, June 13, 2024

Unlike European Christian notions regarding human dominion over all of creation, the Haudenosaunee belief is that our relationship with the earth is one of responsibilities…. Read the full article here. 

Indigenous Artists Make Themselves Seen at the Thomas Cole Site

Steven Weinberg, May 26, 2024

An exhibition curated by Scott Manning Stevens moves Native peoples to the forefront of historical depictions of the Hudson Valley and elsewhere…. Read the full article here.

The Roundtable: “Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape” at Thomas Cole Historic Site through October 27

Sarah LaDuke, May 7, 2024

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York has opened a new exhibition titled “Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape.” It juxtaposes an Indigenous approach to the articulation of their homelands and the environment with the American landscape paintings of Thomas Cole, which are rooted in European tradition… Listen to the full episode here.

Six Trees that Inspire at Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios

Haley Somolinos, April 12, 2024

When thinking of painters and trees, Bob Ross may be the first to come to mind. However, painters were charmed by “happy little trees” for centuries before Ross…. Cole wrote that “Trees are like men, differing wildly in character… they exhibit striking peculiarities, and sometimes grand originality.”… The 200-year-old honey locust that towers over his home is no exception, with its distinctive three-branched thorns. Planted at the entrance to the Main House, the honey locust appears in an 1868 painting of the site… Read the full article here. 

Landscape View: A New Documentary Digs Into the Past at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Malea Martin, Winter 2024

Early 19th century artist Thomas Cole is widely considered America’s first great landscape painter, known for his intricate oil depictions of sweeping natural views in the Catskills, where he lived and worked. But Cole wasn’t a “one-man band,” says Betsy Jacks, executive director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. “Thomas Cole didn’t do everything—he didn’t grind his pigments and make the tea and take care of the children and plant the garden. It took a whole household to make that happen.”…Read the full article here.

2023

Ten shows to see at New England museums this fall

Murray Whyte, October 20, 2023

WOMEN REFRAME THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE On view through the end of the month at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, N.Y., this exhibition moves to the New Britain Museum of American Art for the winter… Read the full article here.

Newly Reviewed – Upstate – ‘Women Reframe American Landscape’

Travis Diehl, August 30, 2023

An exhibition at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site shows the extent to which the idea of landscape has been rethought….. Read the full article here. 

Illuminating Sarah Cole

2023 Cole Fellow Kristen Marchetti, August 12, 2023

Sarah Cole (1805–1857) was an accomplished American artist known for her paintings, etchings, and drawings. Like her brother Thomas Cole, an influential figure in the Hudson River School, she worked in the earliest years of the Hudson River School movement. She exhibited and sold her work nationally while living periodically at Cedar Grove, the property we know today as the Thomas Cole National Historic Site…. Read the full article here.

Women Reframe American Landscape Susie Barstow & Her Circle / Contemporary Practices

Jessica Skwire Routhier, August 11, 2023

The visual appeal of the works draws you in and creates a space where you can begin to question why you have never seen some of them before, or why you respond as you do to seeing them in this place…. Read the full article here. 

A Guide to Art Exhibitions in New York and Massachusetts

Zachary Small, July 27, 2023

The exhibition at the Thomas Cole site pulls double-duty, restoring Barstow’s reputation as a pre-eminent American landscape painter while putting her in conversation with contemporary artists who also incorporate nature into their work. The roster of artists shown alongside the 19th-century painter is formidable…. Read the full article here. 

Susie Barstow lived a grand adventure but her art was erased

Philip Kennicott, July 24, 2023

CATSKILL, N.Y. — Susie Barstow is said to have walked 10 to 12 miles a day and sometimes more than twice that. She climbed all the major peaks of the Adirondack, White and Catskill Mountains, traveled the country from end to end, spent time in Europe staying current with developing art trends, and ventured as far as India, China and Japan. She was a successful artist, with an established studio in Brooklyn and elite clients and students. At a time when art was a men’s club, Barstow built not only a commercially successful career, but a formidable reputation as a landscape artist. … Read the full article here. 

Exhibition Review: Women, Land and Art at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Erika Gaffney, July 6, 2023

Last weekend marked my first-ever visit to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site (TCNHS) in Catskill, New York. The English-American painter after whom this museum is named founded the Hudson River School, a movement traditionally associated with male artists. But in recent years, art historians, curators, dealers and other stakeholders have begun to shine a light on the women artists of the Hudson River School…. Read the full article.

Susie Barstow, a 19th-Century Artist Who Hiked Mountains in Bloomers to Paint Stunning Landscapes, Finally Gets a Museum Retrospective

Sarah Cascone, July 4, 2023

The result is a two-part exhibition pairing work by Barstow—who already had one piece in the Cole house collection—and other women of the Hudson River School, with that of contemporary women artists responding to the landscape. It’s a collaboration between Siegel, who handled the historic material (and also wrote a new monograph about Barstow), and Thomas Cole National Historic Site chief curator Kate Menconeri and assistant curator Amanda Malmstrom, who enlisted the show’s living artists. … Read the full article. 

Women rule the landscape–then and now–in Cole exhibits

William Jaeger, June 28, 2023

The problem begins if you think women don’t usually paint landscapes. OK, you admit, they do now — women do everything now — but what about in the 1800s? “Women Reframe American Landscape” at the Thomas Cole House gives proof that women did everything then, too. And women are growing our understanding of the landscape into the 21st century. … Read the full article. 

5 Unmissable Art Road Trips for Every Kind of Traveler

Cultured Magazine, June 27, 2023

Go back in time with a visit to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, which houses the home and studio of Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. On view is a two-part exhibition examining female artists’ treatment of the landscape: first, a survey of the work of lesser-known Hudson River School painter Susie M. Barstow, and second, a show of contemporary interpretations of the landscape motif by artists including Kay Walkingstick, Jean Shin, and Teresita Fernández. … Read the full article.

Women Reframe American Landscape Painting At Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Chadd Scott, June 26, 2023

Barstow (1836-1923) receives the first retrospective of her career one century following her death… Read the full article here. 

REVIEW: ‘Women Reframe American Landscape’ celebrates women artists of the Hudson River School with historical and contemporary works

Lauren Levato Coyne, May 12, 2023

“Women Reframe American Landscape: Susie Barstow & Her Circle / Contemporary Practices” is a two-part exhibition that exemplifies what the Cole Site does best—placing contemporary artists in dialogue with painters from the Hudson River School. … Read the full article here.

The Roundtable: “Susie Barstow & Her Circle” at Thomas Cole National Historic Site as part of the “Women Reframe American Landscape” exhibition

Joe Donahue, May 5, 2023

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York presents a two-part exhibition titled “Women Reframe American Landscape” May 6 to October 29, 2023. … Listen here.

8 must-see summer museum exhibitions to visit in the Berkshires

Jennifer Huberdeau, May 5, 2023

With so many artistic offerings on the horizon, we’ve put together a list of eight museum exhibitions that we feel are “must-see” shows this summer — exhibitions that reinsert women artists into Hudson River School movement; explore form, function and design; celebrate collections and careers and highlight individual artists in new ways. … Read the full article here.

 

2022

Thomas Cole Historic site breaks ground on $1.8M renovation project

Mellisa Manno, Nov 20, 2022

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site, home to the Hudson River School and birthplace of the American art movement, has broken ground on a $1.8 million renovation project that will launch a new comprehensive visitor center…. Read the full article here.

Marc Swanson Draws Comfort From Rural Cemeteries and ’80s Club Music

Scott Heller, November 8, 2022

For his eerie installation, “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco,” the artist looked to Maggie Nelson, Hollywood glamour and upstate New York. Read the full article here.

At Mass MoCA, dead deer and disco lights elegize a dying world

Murray Whyte, November 3, 2022

NORTH ADAMS, Mass., AND CATSKILL, N.Y. — Marc Swanson works on a rural property nestled in the Hudson River Valley that 200 years ago inspired a school of painters who found in its pristine waters and leafy glades the presence of the divine. Lately, for Swanson, it’s been as much a ringside seat to a climate apocalypse as a bucolic refuge. “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco,” his sprawling exhibition that spans a pair of large galleries at Mass MoCA in North Adams and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, N.Y., is his response to it. … Read the full article here. 

REVIEW: Marc Swanson, Thomas Cole National Historic Site and MASS MoCA

Lauren Levato Coyne, Nov/Dec Issue

Marc Swanson’s “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” offers a queer elegy for our collective climate futures. The two-venue exhibition tackles… Read the full article here.

11 Historic Artists’ Homes & Studios to Enjoy the Changing Seasons

Haley Somolinos, October 21, 2022

Artists have always drawn inspiration from the changing of the seasons, and fall is often the perfect time to visit historic artists’ homes and studios to see how the shifting landscapes provided creative influence for their works. … Read the full article here.

The Best of Our Knowledge: Exploring a Virtual Painting

Lucas Willard, October 21, 2022

A conversation with Thomas Cole National Historic Site Executive Director Betsy Jacks and The Best of Our Knowledge host Lucas Willard about the new digital education prototype that transforms Thomas Cole’s 1843 painting River in the Catskills into a digital world that students can enter and navigate. Listen here.

Day Trip: Olana & Thomas Cole Historic Sites

Jamie Larson, August 28, 2022

The Olana State Historic Site, located just outside Hudson, New York, and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, across the Hudson River in Catskill, live in perpetual conversation with each other. The best way to engage in the dialogue between Olana, the home of Hudson River School of painting master Frederic Church, and that of Church’s teacher and mentor Thomas Cole, is to visit them both. That’s easy enough to do, given the sites are conveniently—and intentionally—connected by the scenic Hudson River Skywalk that spans the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. … Read the full story here.

“A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” at Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Natasha Chuk, August 13, 2022

At the famous painter’s home in Catskill, Swanson’s exhibition is in dialogue with Cole’s landscapes and fondness for the natural environment, offering an update to Cole’s 19th century concerns and idealized mountain views, which were created to critique the exploitation of land for the benefit of industry. … Read the full article here.

The Roundtable: “Marc Swanson: A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” at Thomas Cole National Historic Site and MASS MoCA

Joe Donahue, August 11, 2022

A new exhibition of art installations by Catskill-based artist Marc Swanson is now at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. The exhibition — titled “Marc Swanson: A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” — is the second part of a two-part exhibition of his work that is also on display at MASS MoCA. The exhibition is inspired by the work of Thomas Cole and his warnings about environmental damage. … Listen here.

‘Thomas Cole’s Studio: Memory and Inspiration’ Review: What Might Have Been

Barrymore Laurence Scherer, July 19, 2022

This intimate show tantalizes in unexpected ways. By juxtaposing finished works spanning his career with others in progress, it enables us to peer insightfully into Cole’s visual imagination and working methods…Ultimately, this moving show emphasizes the tragedy of a flourishing artistic existence cut short. … Read the full article here.

 

Thomas Cole’s studio rises from the ground to enrich connection to artist

William Jaeger, June 23, 2022

We might wish that Thomas Cole’s New Studio in Catskill had somehow survived from the 1840s until now, with all its vintage wood and rippled glass. We could then feel, maybe, what Cole experienced that one final year he worked there, 1847.

But we are left with a richer narrative, a story about loss, about cultural amnesia and then about an awakening and a kind of redemption…. Read the full article here.

The Roundtable: “Thomas Cole’s Studio: Memory and Inspiration”

Joe Donohue, May 10, 2022

We’ll learn about the new exhibition “Thomas Cole’s Studio: Memory and Inspiration,” which explores the creative directions of the painter’s last years, the rich and diverse group of works left in his studio at his death, and how his example so powerfully affected the evolution of art in America…Listen here.

New Exhibit of Thomas Cole Works reimagines Hudson River School painter’s last days

Karen Croke, April 16, 2022

Thomas Cole was already the most famous landscape painter in America when he died unexpectedly at the age of 47 in 1848. One of the Hudson River School painters, Cole lived and worked in Catskill. His death shook the American art world, according to Franklin Kelly, senior curator of American paintings at the National Gallery of Art… Read the full article here.

Painter Thomas Cole’s personal journal published

Tracy Ziemer, April 16, 2022

Having lived in the U.S. between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War — a period of great political and societal change — Cole writes about then-emerging industries and technologies, such as the railroad and the daguerreotype, and offers incredible details about hikes in the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains. … Read the full article here.

What does it mean to live in the ruins of the future? At Mass MoCA, Marc Swanson’s answer is catastrophic beauty.

Jennifer Huberdeau, April 8, 2022

The influences and inspirations of the past and present—the nightclubs of his youth, the woods of today, the works of Thomas Cole, the impact of climate change, the similarities of the initial non-responses of the White House to AIDS and COVID-19—are ever present, as they mix and mingle throughout A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco…. Read the full article here.

Connecting Point

April 7, 2022

Marc Swanson discusses his new exhibit and how his work examines the relationship between humans and the natural world. Watch the video here.

 

Re-Imagining Thomas Cole’s Last Studio

Sarah Rose Sharp, March 3, 2022

It is hard to say where Cole’s multitudinous interests would have taken him, if not for his early demise at the age of 47 in February of 1848. But a new exhibition opening on April 30 at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York, promises to give viewers an idea of the creative directions of the painter’s last years with a selection of works left in his studio at his death. … Read the full article here.

2021

The Catskills Are Still the Perfect Fall Escape—Here’s How to Plan Yours

Peter Terzian, November 9, 2021

The village of Catskill doesn’t seem particularly Catskilly. That’s partly because it’s located on the Hudson River, several miles to the east of the mountains that give the region its name. Still, you can see those mountains, a bumpy band of grayish lilac, from the house of Thomas Cole, where my husband, Caleb, and I found ourselves one recent afternoon. Read the full article here.

Building Bridges: An inside look at the new exhibition Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment

James D. Balestrieri, November/December 2021

A potent contribution to the relatively new notion that artists like Cole, Church and Heade were proto-environmentalists whose art brought them close to the natural world they loved and, as a consequence, made them frontline witnesses to its devastation. Read the full article here.

Summer’s Last Hummingbirds

Ralph Gardner Jr., October 9, 2021

With the exception of a few stragglers, hummingbirds have departed the Hudson Valley for their winter homes in southern Mexico and Central America. Most of those that remain can be spotted at an exhibition called “Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment.” Read and listen to the full article here.

Cross Pollination and Creativity Along the Hudson River

Kate Menconeri and William L. Coleman, October 7, 2021

Cross Pollination … is an exploration of systems of pollination in both nature and ecology, as well as a metaphor for the interplay of art and science, and relationships among artists across generations. Read the full article here.

In the Hudson River Valley, Artists Navigate Ecology

Sarah Rose Sharp, October 5, 2021

There is a definite poignance to this exhibition, which pits the nascent awareness of human impact on wild spaces evident even in the 19th century to our present-day urgency around climate change and the need for meaningful revision of our relationship with consumption of natural resources. Read the full article here. 

Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment

Jason Rosenfeld, September 2021

Cross Pollination addresses an element of the work of the Hudson River School (or First New York School) and its present inheritors upstate (or Third New York School) … that is, the ecological emergency that humanity has brought on itself and now must face in our fraught Anthropocene, as intuited in the works of our 19th-century forebearers. … Read the full article here. 

Many Artists Began Painting Outside During the Pandemic—And They Might Never Go Back

Dodie Kazanjian, September 15, 2021

Shara Hughes and Austin Eddy also escaped the city, renting a house in the Catskills this spring. It was directly across the street from the historic home of Thomas Cole and a short walk across the bridge to Frederic Church’s estate Olana, on the opposite bank of the Hudson River. Eddy went specifically to investigate plein air painting—he brought a bike and a portable easel. … Read the full article here. 

Hummingbirds on the Hudson

August 16, 2021

Cross Pollination is an enterprising endeavor that makes for a thrilling visit to the region, filled with insights running back and forth between past and present…. Read the full article here.

Must-See Sculpture Park Shows

August 5, 2021

A round-up of this year’s best outdoor sculpture exhibitions…. Read the full article here.

Pollination, indeed: Past, present intertwine at Cole, Olana exhibit

William Jaeger, July 30, 2021

Have a hankering to see a show that is muscular, multi-faceted, and tightly integrated into our regional lore and landscape? Head to Catskill and Hudson for the double-edged “Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church & Our Contemporary Moment.” … Read the full article here. 

 

Olana, Cole House continue successful partnership

Shrishti Mathew, July 28, 2021

The section of the Hudson River that flows between the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill and The Olana Partnership in Hudson is wide, and some would say so are the barriers that divide some arts institutions. The tourism history of both historic homes that also serve as art exhibit spaces – as befits the spirits of the original occupants – has traveled widely diverse paths to arrive at the present.

But now here they are, finding shared goals and making their now-three collaborations with each other a fluid success…. Read the full article here. 

Discover what drew artists, writers and presidents to New York’s Hudson Valley

Debra Bruno, July 30, 2021

The region is rich in timeless scenery and American history, and as more downstate New Yorkers have moved to the area, all kinds of places to go and things to do have opened up or expanded: new restaurants, well-marked hiking trails, river cruises, art galleries and museums that celebrate the Hudson River School painters. … Read the full article here

The Art Angle Podcast: How Two Painters Helped Spark the Modern Conservation Movement

An exhibition traces the impact of Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Martin Johnson Heade on contemporary environmentalism.

The Art Angle Podcast with Andrew Goldstein, July 30, 2021

Right now there is a powerful, highly ambitious, and deeply relevant art show in New York that weaves together the histories of conservation and American art in a way most people haven’t seen before… on either side of the river are the historic homes of the famed Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and Frederic Church in New York’s Hudson River Skywalk Region. … Listen to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts

National Exhibition “Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, And Our Contemporary Moment”

Joe Donahue, July 8, 2021

Olana and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site are collaborating on a major exhibition, titled “Cross Pollination: Heade Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment.” It addresses the continuing influence of the Hudson Valley on American art and the cross pollination that is taking place across centuries. … Listen to the full interview here

 

Q & A with Elizabeth B. Jacks

W.A. Demers, June 4, 2021

When the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced that the Thomas Cole National Historic Site was among 30 finalists for the 2021 National Medal for Museum and Library Service — one of just 15 museums nominated across the United States to be selected as a finalist for the award — the site’s executive director Elizabeth “Betsy” B. Jacks, was understandably elated. …. Read the full article here

37 Art Centers Every Hudson Valleyite Should Visit

May 5, 2021

The home and studio of Thomas Cole, founder of the renowned 19th-century Hudson River School of American painting, has been painstakingly preserved and refurbished. Also known as Cedar Grove, it’s now a National Historic Landmark with trails, gardens, and gorgeous views of the landscapes that Cole cherished and depicted in numerous paintings. …. Read the full article here

Off the Beaten Path: Spring Lights at Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Cassie Hudson, April 20, 2021

For 20 years the Thomas Cole National Historic Site has been sharing the beauty of the painter’s home and studio with the community. This spring, people are welcome to enjoy a new community event called Spring Lights… Watch the full video here

Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill celebrates 20 years as finalist for national honor

Ariel Zangla, April 18, 2021

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site has more than one reason to celebrate this year… Watch the full video here

As Thomas Cole house mission adapts, message stays the same

Tresca Weinstein, April 12, 2021

Created with 450 glowing orbs, the immersive installation conjures up a magical space filled with life and warmth. The sound score by composer Greg Hanson integrates Cole’s writings (as voiced by the actor Jamie Bell) and sets an emotional narrative that is reflected in the lighting design by Chris Bocchiaro and Megan Kinneen…a film by artist Brian Kenny, projected on the wall of the Old Studio… Read the full article here

2020

Traveling through time with Thomas Cole

Robert and Johanna Titus, October 16, 2020

We like to think that we are good citizens of the Catskills and the Hudson Valley. Of course, we do a lot of writing hereabouts, but also, we belong to a number of our region’s historical, artistic, and conservation groups…. Read the full article here

Standing Where it Happened

By Barrymore Laurence Scherer, October 7, 2020

Museums may represent the final destination of an artwork, but the artist’s studio is its birthplace. Therefore, historic studios can offer an unparalleled experience of closeness to the creative act—even when visited digitally.

Among the most venerable in the U.S. is Cedar Grove in Catskill, N.Y., now revered as the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, home of the painter and founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting. …. Read the full article here

The Critics Notebook

By The Editors, September 4, 2020

The Pollinator Pavilion, at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site: Though the Thomas Cole National Historic Site’s interior remains closed to visitors, those passing through the Hudson Valley this autumn might want to stop by anyway to enjoy the open grounds…. Read the full article here

Thomas Cole Site Unveils Charging Station

By Sara Trafton, Columbia Greene Media, August 24, 2020

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site announced the installation of an electronic vehicle charging station, the first in Catskill. The charging station, which was made possible by a donation from local residents and environmentalists Sara and Tom de Swardt, features two charging ports and allows two vehicles to charge at the same time… Read the full article here

The Pollinator Pavilion Opens at the Thomas Cole Site

 August 7, 2020

This Friday, August 7, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York, unveils The Pollinator Pavilion, a new public artwork by internationally renowned artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood… Read the full article here

Editors’ Picks: 17 Events for Your Art Calendar This Week, From a Peek Into MoMA’s Film Vault to the Parrish Reopening

By Artnet News, August 4, 2020

Husband and wife artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood have teamed up once again, this time on a new public artwork designed to attract hummingbirds—yes, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird can be found in New York—and other pollinators… Read the full article here

An Upstate art Installation let’s visitors commune with hummingbirds

By Howard Halle, July 31, 2020

We recommend making a weekend getaway to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY. There, you’ll find Pollinator Pavilion, an interactive outdoor art installation by artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood, which is described as a “fantastical architectural setting that offers miraculous moments in which individuals can encounter hummingbirds”… Read the full article here

         

The Hudson Valley and Northeast’s Museums Start Reopening

By Nicki Donohue, July 29, 2020

In Catskill, the Thomas Cole House’s interior remains closed to the public but guests can explore the estate grounds by reserving an “Outdoor Explore Kit,” which includes souvenirs, walking directions to Catskill Creek, and a guidebook… Read the full article here

En Plein Air: Artists’ Haunts Beckon As the World Reopens

By Laura Beach, June 23, 2020

Largely overshadowed by the visible frustration and fatigue of the past few months, creativity is on the rise. With everything from the museum blockbuster to the summer vacation season effectively upended, we are reassessing our engagement with the material world… Read the full article here

Redefining the “Sublime”: In the Footsteps of Thomas Cole

By Robert Titus, PhD, and Johanna Titus, May/June 2020

We are scientists: Robert is a geologist and Johanna is a biologist. Ours are the two leading sciences of the landscape. We are also resident’s of New York State’s Catskill Mountains… Read the full article here

New Book Explores Creative Homes and Spaces Where Art Was Made

By Charles Desmarais, April 27, 2020

What books have you chosen for quarantine reading? I would not have thought first of a travel guidebook. But a new one that arrived in the mail last week carried me across the U.S. on a tour so absorbing, I hardly noticed that the trip was made entirely by armchair…. Read the full article here

Earth Day 2070: A World Lost

Story and Photography by Pete Muller, April 2020

As New York’s Hudson Valley was cleared to make way for agriculture and feed a thriving tannery industry, the 19th-century painter Thomas Cole lamented the destruction of his beloved forests…Read the full article here | See an excerpt here.

In 1845 Hudson River School Founder Thomas Cole Argued That ‘Art Rekindles the Soul.’ Read an Excerpt From His Stirring Lecture.

April 16, 2020

In 1845, three years before his death, the American painter Thomas Cole, who is widely regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, wrote a lecture on the value of art as a public and moral good. Art, he wrote…Read the full article here.

The Critic’s Notebook: Thomas Cole, Leonard Bernstein, the Yale Series of Younger Poets & more.

April 7, 2020

Lecture on Art, by Thomas Cole (Thomas Cole National Historic Site): The Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole’s visionary nature was on display…Read here.

 

Take Virtual Trip to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Get Immersed in American Landscape Painting

March 16, 2020

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York, offers an array of online programs covering the painter Thomas Cole, his period in America and…Read here.

 

Major Collaborative Exhibition to Open in May at Olana State Historic Site and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

February 28, 2020

Exhibit explores the theme of “cross pollination” in art and the environment from the 19th century to the contemporary moment…Read here.

2019

Staring into the Soul of the Catskills Through a Pinhole

With his camera obscura, Shi Guorui reinterprets the landscapes of the Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. 

By Meredith Mendelsohn, October 24, 2019

Sometime last summer, a rectangular tent appeared in the woods off a trail in the Catskills…Read here.

The View That Launched American Art

Podcast hosted by Davis Dunavin, September 20, 2019

Two 19th century artists defined American landscape painting. Their art took them all over the world. But they always returned to the mountains and valleys around New York’s Hudson River….Listen here

Re-envisioning Cole’s Catskills

By Eleanor Gustafson, September 17, 2019

In 2014 destiny brought Guorui to Catskill, New York, where he was inspired by the Hudson valley light and landscapes that so inspired Cole.

This fall you can see his results in SHI GUORUI: Ab/Sense-Pre/Sense, opening at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site on September 22. We spoke to Kate Menconeri, director of exhibitions and collections and curator at the site and curator of the exhibition….Read here

‘Thomas Cole’s Refrain: The Paintings of Catskill Creek’ Review: Elegies

By Barrymore Laurence Scherer, August 10, 2019

An exhibition of the English-born painter’s lesser-known Hudson Valley scenes evinces his love for natural beauty and sorrow over its devastation.
Although the English-born painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848) is widely regarded…Read here

No. 402: Cole’s Catskill Creek

Podcast hosted by Tyler Green, July 28, 2019

For the first time, the exhibition considers Cole’s paintings of Catskill Creek…Listen here

Timelessness in Works by Thomas Cole and Brice Marden

By Peter Schjeldahl, May 27, 2019

Two small shows in the Hudson Valley hint at long spiritual rhythms that are not lost, though they may be occluded, in the staccato frenzies of of our day.
Two sublime small shows that will last the summer in towns along the Hudson River remind me of something that art is good for. Read here

Thomas Cole up the Creek

By Bruce Weber, May/June 2019

Only a short walk from Thomas Cole’s house and studio in upstate New York winds a stretch of Catskill Creek that the painter would return to depict again and again…Read Here

Emily Cole’s Artwork takes Center Stage at Cole Historic Site

By Dave Lucas, March 8, 2019

An artist with deep roots in upstate New York is celebrated this month with the first exhibition of her work in over a century…Read Here

 

2018

 

Surveying the scenery at the Albany Airport Gallery

Artists and writers take cues from Thomas Cole’s defense of natural beauty in “Landmark” exhibition

By Amy Griffin, The Albany Times Union

Landscape art and environmentalism have long been linked. Artists who are inspired by nature tend to want to preserve it. Though the focus of the environmental movement has evolved since the 19th century–from preserving natural treasures to averting global catastrophe–appreciation of all that nature has to offer has been a common thread. Read Here.

 

 

On Exhibit: ‘Landmark’ Looks at Environment and Us

At airport, Thomas Cole Works Brought into Modern Context

By Indiana Nash, The Daily Gazette

“Landmark” is a fitting exhibition, not only because it’s informed and inspired by Thomas Cole but also because it’s at the Albany International  Airport, the lift-off point into sweeping aerial views of the Capital Region. Read Here.

Hudson Talbott’s New Book On Thomas Cole and The Birth of American Art

By Joe Donahue, WAMC

Artist and author, Hudson Talbott, join us now to tell us about his new book, “picturing America: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Art.”
It is a fascinating look at artist Thomas Cole’s life and takes young readers from his humble beginnings to his development of a new painting style that became America’s first formal art movement: the Hudson River school of painting. Read Here.

 

Kids’ Almanac (10/18-10/25)

By Erica Chase-Salerno, Hudson Valley One

“All nature here is new to art. The mists were resting in the valley of the Hudson — the tops of mountains were visible on the other side — you might imagine them in another world. The fields in shadow were a most beautiful fresh green, the mountain side was brilliant though dark.”
–Thomas Cole

Discover the Thomas Cole National Historic Site
How did Englishman Thomas Cole catapult to the top of the 1800s US art game? The father of this new style of landscape painting, now known as the Hudson River School, had talent, skill and popularity. Read Here.

Where Canvases Leap to Life: Eight stop trail in the Catskills takes you to scenes that inspired artists

By Ben Yagoda, The Washington Post

My wife and I were standing on a bridge by the side of Route 23A, outside of Catskill, NY, a bit more than a hundred miles up the Hudson River from New York City. Read Here.

Hudson Talbott Illustrates Life of Thomas Cole

From Staff Reports, Poughkeepsie Journal

“Picturing America: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Art” is the latest book for children by Hudson Talbott.
The 32-page picture book takes readers on a journey through the life of Thomas Cole, father of the Hudson River School of landscape painting, America’s first major art movement. Read Here…

Albany International Airport and Thomas Cole Site Present New Exhibition

by Dave Lucas, WAMC

Albany International Airport’s Art & Culture Program and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill have partnered to present a new exhibition. Read Here…

 

Autumn At The Thomas Cole National Historic Site

by Joe Donahue, WAMC

The 2nd annual Hudson River Skywalk Arts Festival is on Sunday, September 30 at the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Olana. Read Here…

 

 

 

How Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School Artists Helped Define a Nation

by Debra Bruno, The Washington Post

The Painters of the Hudson River School were grandiose, romantic, dramatic and brilliantly colorful. They also helped define the nation, championing wild America to a population that often saw nature as a thing to be feared and tamed, not celebrated. Read Here…

 

 

Thomas Cole’s Historic Home Inspires Contemporary Artists

by Antiques and the Arts Weekly

Catskill, N.Y.–A new contemporary art exhibition, “Spectrum,” has opened at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, revealing a visual dialogue about color between 11 contemporary artists and Thomas Cole (1801-1848), founder of America’s first major art movement, the Hudson River School of landscape painting. Read Here…

The Thomas Cole House, Olana, and Lyndhurst

by Jason Rosenfeld, The Brooklyn Rail

The Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance CEDAR GROVE: THE THOMAS COLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE-MAY1-NOVEMBER 4, 2018

Costume & Custom: Middle Eastern Threads at Olana
OLANA STATE HISTORIC SITE,HUDSON, NY-JUNE 17-NOVEMBER 25, 2018 Read Here…

A Guide to Columbia and Greene Counties: Hudson and Catskill

by Brian K. Mahoney, Chronogram

The county seats of Hudson and Catskill are dissimilar in many respects, but their residents are passionate about the possibilities for their towns. We speak to the movers and shakers in the two communities about what makes them tick. Read Here…

6 Books to Read in September

by Brian K. Mahoney, Chronogram

Historic estates, exotic birds, troubled immigrants, deranged loners, and parishes dealing with the tainted legacy of the Catholic Church make up our September list. Read Here…

 

The Artist Who Gave America Its First Signature Art Form

by Meredith Mendelson, Artsy

Early 19th-century America was a place of growing affluence. As wealth from agriculture and industry accumulated, New York’s moneyed classes hungered for cultural clout to add a luster of civility to the rugged face of the young republic. And as the urbanization of New York City intensified, city dwellers yearned for the picturesque. Read Here…

     

    Brooklyn Double Wide

The Thomas Cole House: A Kid-Friendly Historic Site in Catskill, NY

Catskill for Kids, Destinations

Blog by Kara Zauro

At the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, art, history, and nature converge. And it’s the kind of place that really lights up when inquisitive children arrive, so if your kids are interested in any of these subjects, definitely bring them along for a self-guided afternoon tour. Read Here…

 

Thomas Cole to Open Contemporary Art Exhibition with 11 Artists Responding to the Hudson River School Artist’s Work

by ArtFix Daily

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site has announced a new contemporary art exhibition SPECTURUM, opening August 14, that brings together the work of 11 contemporary artists that will be installed throughout the 19th-century historic home, studios, and grounds of the artist Thomas Cole (1801-1848) in Catskill, New York. Read Here…

 

Ralph Gardner Jr: The Novel In Performance

by Ralph Gardner JR, WAMC North-East Public Radio

I was unaware that when Hunter Thompson was a young writer he typed out “The Great Gatsby” and the “Sun Also Rises” to deconstruct how F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway achieved their effects and created their masterpieces. Read Here…

 

How Thomas Cole Learned the ABCs of Landscape Art

by Sammy Dalati, The Magazine Antiques

Even in such early work as The Clove, Catskills (1827) and View of Monte video, the Seat of Daniel Wadsworth, Esq. (1828), the facture and compositional strategies employed by Thomas Cole–a working-class boy from norther England, self-taught as an artist –demonstrated surprising conversance with European landscape paining of the time. Read Here…

A Guide to the Small Towns of Hudson Valley and the Catskills

by Amy Plitt, Curbed

You don’t have to get too far outside of New York City–30, maybe 40 miles–before the landscape changes. Dense urban areas and suburban strip malls grow fewer and farther between, and a more bucolic New York emerges. Read Here…

 

Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire, National Gallery, Review: We long to see more of this great American landscape painting in full flight

by Michael Glover, The Independent

Too much familiar Constable and Turner, and not quite enough Cole and his American successors.

Now here’s a surprise. This exhibition of work by the landscape painter Thomas Cole, though described as a collaboration between two institutions, feels like a tariff-free American import. Read Here...

Exhibition review: Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire at the National Gallery, WC2

Thomas Cole was the first to capture the vastness of the States

by Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times

“Can there be a country in the world better calculated than ours to exercise and to exalt the imagination…” asked De Witt Clinton in 1816. Read Here…

Make America Decay Again-Thomas Cole and Ed Ruscha Review

by Jonathan Jones, The Guardian

American art was invented by a young man from Lancashire who emigrated from Liverpool in 1818, and by 1825-still in his early 20s-was being hailed in New York as an “American genius.” There had, of course, been painters in America before Thomas Cole. Read Here… 

    

Hudson River Bridge Adds Interpretive Signs for Pedestrians

by Associated Press, Times Union

CATSKILL, N.Y. (AP) –
Pedestrians viewing the Hudson River from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge can now refer to a series of signs that include historical information.

The six signs were installed as part of the Hudson River Skywalk Project, which will connect the Thomas National Historic Site in Catskill with the Olana State Historic Site across the river. Read Here…

      

Public Meeting Tonight On Skywalk Connecting Olana, Thomas Cole Sites

by Dave Lucas, Midday Magazine

The in-progress Skywalk project connecting two New York sites is the subject of public meeting tonight in Greene County.
Earlier this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the creation of the Hudson River Skywalk Region. A $14.6 million Skywalk will connect two landmark historic sites–Olana State Historic Site in Hudson and Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill. Read Here…

 

Catskill Culture

by Geddy Sveikauskas, Hudson Valley One

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the
hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the
twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Read Here…

 

Thomas Cole: A Conservative Conservationist

by Jennifer Kabat, The New York Review of Books

Every era gets its own Thomas Cole, the British-born, nineteenth century artist who ushered in a new age of American landscape painting. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was a precursor to artists like Grant Wood. Come the 1960s and 1970s, MoMA linked his brushwork to abstract expressionism. Read Here…

         

Understanding American art by Environmentalist art by looking across the pond

by Benjamin Cassidy, The Berkshire Eagle

Even as Thomas Cole painted American landscapes, his mind often inhabited terrain across the Atlantic Ocean. The England-born father of the Hudson River School artistic movement drew inspiration from artists across the pond, including J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. Read Here…

 

Environmentalist art before there was an “environment”

by Y.F.

TWO centuries ago Thomas Cole Arrived on American shores, bringing with him from England a new landscape painting tradition perfect for the wild expanses of the new world. Cole also brought a zeal for warning about the perils that unchecked industry posed to the natural world, establishing one of painting’s first environmental critiques. “Atlantic Crossings”, an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York that will travel to the National Gallery in London in June.Read Here…

New Exhibition Opens at Thomas Cole National Historic Site

By Sparrow

“Thomas Cole invented the American sublime,” remarks Tim Barringer, an art history professor at Yale, speaking of the founder of the Hudson River School of art. Barringer is also co-curator of “picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance,” which opens on May 1 at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill. Read Here…

Thomas Cole’s Majestic Wilderness and Dark Satanic Mills: A Feast at The Met Looks at the Founder of the Hudson River School and the Visionaries who Inspired Him

By R.C. Baker The Village Voice , April 2018

Thomas Cole, like us, lived in interesting times. Born in 1801, he grew up in an England disrupted by the industrial revolution and unsettled by the fervid passions of romanticism, where the poet and painter William Blake wrote of a “green and pleasant land” being overrun by “dark satanic mills.” Read Here…

Thomas Cole’s Sublime Art Opens At His National Historic Site May 1

By Antiques and the Arts Weekly , April 2018

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site will open the exhibition “Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance” on May 1, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Thomas Cole’s arrival in America. Read Here…

Hudson Talbott Introduces Children To Thomas Cole

By Antiques and the Arts Weekly , April 2018

In an online version and softcover book (due to be published in September by Penguin Random House), author and illustrator Hudson Talbott introduces children to artist Thomas Cole, whose 200th anniversary of coming to America is being celebrated in 2018 with an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Read Here…

Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings

By Joe Bucciero, The Brooklyn Rail, April 2018

“All nature here is new to art, no Tivolis, Ternis, Mont Blancs, Plinlimmons, hackneyed and worn by the daily pencils of hundreds; but primeval forests, virgin lakes and waterfalls.” So rhapsodized British-born painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848) on the appeal of the American landscape. Read Here…

An Online Story and Forthcoming Picture Book by Hudson Talbott Introduces 19th-Century Artist Thomas Cole to a New Generation

By Artfix Daily, March 2018.

Beloved children’s book author and illustrator Hudson Talbott has teamed up with the Thomas Cole National Historic Site to present Thomas Cole’s story online for free to children of all ages.Read Here…

            

Scenic Viewpoints Added to NY Bridge’s Rebuilt Sidewalk

By Associated Press, The New York Times, March 2018.

HUDSON, N.Y.–Scenic viewpoints have been added to the rebuilt sidewalk on one of the New York state-operated bridges spanning the Hudson River between Albany and New York City.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday three viewpoints, each 50 feet long by 10 feet wide, have been added along the mile-long sidewalk on the Rip Van Winkle Bridge linking Greene and Columbia counties…Read Here

          

Thomas Cole, American Moralist

Why this 19th-century master of the Hudson River landscape, who used his art to argue against industry’s assaults, is politically right for right now.

By Holland Cotter, The New York Times, March 2018

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new show, “Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings” is gorgeous, politically right for right now, and a lesson in the mutability of art history…Read here.

     

                   A New Way of Seeing Artist Thomas Cole

By Alexandra Wolfe, The Wall Street Journal, January 2018

The curators of a new Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition might have titled it, “Everything you Knew About Thomas Cole.”

Cole is known as the father of the Hudson River School, a group of American artists who painted dramatic outdoor panoramas. But “Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings” posits an artist with an international background and interests…Read Here.

   

“Thomas Cole’s Jouney: Atlantic Crossings’ Review: Hudson River School Headmaster

By Barrymore Laurence Scherer,The Wall Street Journal, January 2018

When, in 1848, the painter Thomas Cole suddenly died at age 47, his funeral oration was delivered by his celebrated friend William Cullen Bryant, the poet and journalist, who recalled the enthusiasm awakened by…pictures which carried the eye over scenes of wild grandeur peculiar to our country…and into the depths of skies…such as few but Cole could ever paint…Read Here

Thomas Cole: ravishing — and still resonant

By Ariella Budick, The Financial Times, Februrary 2018

Don’t be fooled by the ancient rivers and cloud-swathed peaks: Thomas Cole’s American landscapes are no more timeless than an “I’m With Her” button. He painted his visionary protests during the Andrew Jackson administration in the 1830s, and if they resonate with renewed vigour today, that’s partly because Jackson’s 21st-century admirer-in-chief inhabits the White House…Read Here

Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings

By Jason Rosenfeld, The Brooklyn Rail, March 2018

In 2015 the painter Stephen Hannock and I curated “River Crossings” at Cedar Grove in Catskill, the home of Thomas Cole, and The Olana Partnership in Hudson, the home of Frederic Edwin Church, filling those loci of the evolution of American landscape painting with works by contemporary Hudson River Valley artists:…Read Here.  

‘Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance’ to Open in the Artist’s Studio

By Artfix Daily, February 8, 2018

(ArtfixDaily.com) To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Cole’s arrival from England in 1818, the Thomas Cole Site is partnering with the Yale Center for British Art to present the special exhibition Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance in Thomas Cole’s New Studio, in Catskill, NY…Read Here. 

Voice for the Wilderness

By James D. Balestrieri, American Fine Art Magazine, January 2018

I spent my last birthday at Thomas Cole’s house and studio in Catskill, New York. The house, doubling as it did as his showroom – galleries as we know them did not exist in the United States much before the Civil War, and artists’ associations such as the National Academy of Design (which Cole had helped to found) only held annual exhibitions – was an architectural marvel in its humble way. …Read Here. 

Sting and Thomas Cole: Artists on the Cutting Edge in their Own Times Meet in Spirit

By Dave Lucas, WAMC, Northeast Public Radio, January 8, 2018

This year marks the 200th anniversary of influential artist Thomas Cole’s first visit to the United States. The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill and The Metropolitan Museum of Art are paying tribute  …Read Here. 

2017 

Cedar Grove, Restored

By Michael J. Lewis, The New Criterion, December 2017

It is a perfectly natural impulse for us to wish the house of a cherished writer to illuminate his works. We are strangley pleased to visit the houses where Edgar Allen Poe boarded and find them cramped and forlorn. Or to discover that Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s house on the Hudson River, is a fantasy of a romantic Dutch cottage that might have loomed in one of his stories, mysterious in the moonlight…Our interest in a writer is what happens in his mind and not outside his window. Not so with the painter, for whom the house, and its site, can mean everything…Read Here. 

‘Scenes of Solitude’ From the Hudson River School Artists

By John Hanc, The New York Times, October 23, 2017

…The show, which opened in July and will remain until 2019, has attracted visitors from as far away as Germany. Still, it can be seen as a sort of opening act for a much-anticipated exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings,” opening in January 2018. (A third major exhibit, at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, N.Y., will be staged in May, featuring works of the school from Yale University’s collection…Read Here.

KIKI SMITH: From the Creek

By Steven Pestana, Brooklyn Rail, October 6, 2017

From August 12 – November 19, visitors enter the domestic bliss of Thomas Cole’s Federal style home and are immediately greeted with the sensibility of his 21st century Catskill neighbor, the multidisciplinary artist Kiki Smith….Read Here.

Famous Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole takes global presence; Thomas Cole House celebrates with an extended season

By Anthony Fiducia, Columbia-Greene Media, September 26, 2017

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site leaders will extend the 2017 season to celebrate recent attendance growth and plan to have the fames artist as the subject of two major exhibitions. Organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery in London….Read Here.

Review Sanford Gifford in the Catskills at the Thomas Cole House

By Bruce Weber, The Magazine Antiques, September 6, 2017

Among members of the Hudson River School of painting, Sanford Gifford (1823-1880) has long been considered one of the most brilliant painters of light and air. His art is the subject of the intimate, beautifully curated exhibition Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills on view through October 29th….Read Here.

Home Invasion

By Sparrow, Chronogram, September 1, 2017

“She’s very playful,” says Kate Menconeri, curator of Thomas Cole House. Menconeri is speaking of Kiki Smith, whose exhibition “From the Creek” will remain at the National Historic Site in Catskill until October 29. This is the second installment of “Open House,” a series in which contemporary artists react to the Cole homestead. Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of art, lived in the home until his death in 1848…..Read Here.

Contemporary Art Steams up the Hudson

By Nancy Princenthal, The New York Times, August 25, 2017

This summer, a bounty of classic and modern artwork has made its way to venues dotted along the river valley….Read Here.

Kiki Smith solo exhibit opens at Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill

Hudson Valley One, August 10, 2017

The life’s work of German-born artist Kiki Smith has been celebrated by critics and audiences and shown in prestigious exhibition venues around the world since the 1980s….Read Here.

My View: Local perseverance creates an economic engine

By Linda Gentalen, The Register-Star and Daily Mail, , July 29, 2017

The season opening of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site last month was stunning, unveiling two landmark exhibitions: “The Parlors” and “Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills.” As a Board Member since 2005 of this historic site in Catskill, I couldn’t help but marvel….Read Here.

The Thomas Cole Site Project Marries Historic Restoration, New Technology

Antiques and The Arts Weekly, July 28, 2017

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site which opened for the season in early May, recently introduced its newly restored parlors in the 1815 home of Thomas Cole….Read Here.

The best summer getaways from New York City

By Lynn Freehill-Maye, Time Out New York, June 27, 2017

The ruggedly beautiful Catskill Mountains have a multicentury history of creative inspiration and adventure. Washington Irving set “Rip Van Winkle” among their peaks, and Thomas Cole’s paintings of the area wound up radically changing how artists depict landscapes….Read Here.

24 Hours in the Catskills: For art lovers, upstate New York offers plenty of options beyond the beaten path

By Alexis Soloski, Village Voice, May 30, 2017

Take the short, steep, mildly treacherous hike up to Kaaterskill Falls, and you’s find a rushing cataract that plunges 260 feet in two lacy drops. You’ll also see one of the most painted views of the nineteenth century, a favored subject of the Hudson River School, an art movement that ruled American visual culture for several decades…Read Here.

Layer by layer, Conservator Thomas Cole

By Margaret Saliske, Poughkeepsie Journal, May 30, 2017

Even for those of us well-versed in the Hudson River School of painting, the first major art movement in America, the discovery was stunning. Hidden under a century of paint in the parlors of the 1815 home of Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, are elaborately painted borders…Read Here.

Backtracks in Time: Betsy Jacks

Hosted by Jack Sencabaugh, WGXC Radio, May 23, 2017

Betsy Jacks, executive director of the Thomas Cole House at Cedar Grove in the Village of Catskill, talks about how Cole came to Catskill, the history of the house and efforts to preserve it, and ongoing renovation projects…Listen Here. 

The 7 Best Weekend Getaways for NYC-Based Art Lovers

By Elizabeth Fazarre, Architectural Digest, May 22, 2017

From Storm King to the birthplace of the Hudson River School, these cultural destinations are well worth the short journey from the city… Read Here. 

Thomas Cole comes to life thanks to multimedia renovations at Cedar Grove in Catskill

By Lynn Woods, Hudson Valley One, May 18, 2017

Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, NY, features paintings by the 19th-century landscape painter Sanford Gifford, whose work was inspired by Thomas Cole. …Read entire article

Sanford Gifford in the Catskills includes Walking-and-Driving Tour of Art Scenes

ARTFIXdaily, May 17, 2017

Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, NY, features paintings by the 19th-century landscape painter Sanford Gifford, whose work was inspired by Thomas Cole. …Read entire article

Guide to Hudson New York and Nearby Points of Interest

By Nicole Anderson, The Magazine Antiques, May 16, 2017

The English-born artist Thomas Cole (1801-1848) tolerated no ill comparisons to his adopted home in upstate New York. As he wrote to a friend in 1842: “Must I tell you that neither the Alps nor the Apennines, no, nor even Aetna itself, have dimmed, in my eyes, the beauty of our own Catskills?”. …Read entire article

Cole Historic Site Opens for the Season with New Exhibits

Hosted by Joe Donahue, The Round Table, WAMC, Northeast Public Radio, Tuesday, May 9, 2017  

“The Parlors” is an immersive installation that combines technology and meticulous historic restoration of the two parlors of Cole’s 1815 Home, the rooms where America’s first major art movement was born. It features a stunning discovery revealed during the restoration: the earliest-known, interior decorative painting by an American artist…Listen Here. 

Cole Historic Site Opens for the Season with New Exhibits

The New York Times, Wednesday, May 3, 2017 

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site is open for the season in the Hudson Valley with new exhibits. The Catskill attraction used to be the home of the painter who inspired the Hudson River School art movement in the 19th century…Read entire article

OUR VIEW: Cole exhibit for the ages

Register-Star, Tuesday, May 2, 2017 

Despite the threat to local arts posed by federal budget cuts sought for the National Endowment for the Arts, officials at the Thomas Cole Historic Site in Catskill forged ahead with their most ambitious exhibit to date…Read entire article

Thomas Cole National Historic Site opening on Tuesday in Catskill to feature restored parlors of 1815 home

By Freeman Staff, Daily Freeman, Sunday, April 30, 2017 

Despite the threat to local arts posed by federal budget cuts sought for the National Endowment for the Arts, officials at the Thomas Cole Historic Site in Catskill forged ahead with their most ambitious exhibit to date…Read entire article

Historic Restoration at Thomas Cole Site; “Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills” Opens Season

By Dave Lucas, Midday Magazine, WAMC, Northeast Public Radio,  Friday, April 28, 2017  

The Thomas Cole Historic Site in Catskill is showing off its renovations this week. WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief Dave Lucas got a tour of the main home Thursday, experiencing both an “immersive installation” and the “Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills” exhibit…Read entire article

‘Darkness Visible’: Cole House previews historic exhibit

By Daniel Zuckerman, Catskill Daily Mail, Friday, April 28, 2017  

Members of the media were given a preview of the reopening of the main home at the Thomas Cole Historic Site in Catskill with an immersive installation and the exhibit “Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills,” curated by Kevin Avery…Read entire article

Thomas Cole & His Cedar Grove

Text by Jennifer Holz, Photos by George Holz, Upstate Diary, Thursday, April 27, 2017 

The air is buzzing at Cedar Grove, 19th-century landscape painter Thomas Cole’s country home in Catskill, NY, where historians recently uncovered century-old decorative artworks hidden beneath layers of paint …Read entire article

Painting in the Footsteps of Thomas Cole

By Steven Weinberg, Hyperallergic, Thursday, April 27, 2017

Cole wanted you to stare off into the impending destruction of a landscape and ponder the sublime beauty of it all — which, man, I did…Read entire article

Cedar Grove to reopen in May

By Jane Anderson, Hudson Valley Magazine, Wednesday, April 26, 2017

A new multimedia installation at Thomas Cole’s homestead makes you feel like the artist himself is giving the tour…Read entire article

Actor Jamie Bell Brings Cole to Life

By Daniel Zuckerman, Catskill Daily Mail, Saturday, April 22, 2017

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site’s new interactive exhibit is receiving a bit of star power with “Billy Elliot” star Jamie Bell supplying the voice of Cole for the exhibit, the site’s executive director said Thursday…Read entire article

Connecting with the Land

By James D. Balestrieri, American Fine Art Magazine, Issue 33, May/June 2017 

One of the many cool aspects of Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills, a new exhibition at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York, is the “walking-and-driving-experience” that allows visitors to see the very views that inspired…Read entire article

Thomas Cole murals uncovered on walls of Catskills home in New York State

The Independent, March 9, 2017 

Not only did Thomas Cole paint the lush mountain landscapes that inspired the Hudson River School art movement of the 19th century, he also painted on the walls of his home. Lost beneath layers of paint for more than a century, the patterned borders below the celings were rediscovered…Read entire article

Lost art of Thomas Cole uncovered in his NY home

Associated Press, March 8, 2017 

Watch the video here. 

Our view: Tourism gains momentum

The Register-Star, February 23, 2017

Nine years ago, the Olana National Historic Site in Greenport potted about $8 million for the local economy. Jump ahead to 2016, and the THomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill pulled in almost $2 million…Read entire article

Cole House, Olana have pumped million into local economy

By Daniel Zuckerman, The Daily Mail, February 22, 2017

The Thomas Cole Historic Site announced Tuesday that results of an economic impact study show that the site has a nearly $1.9 million impact on the county, up 44 percent from a previous 2010 study…Read entire article

Follow the Footsteps of the first American artists

Group Tour Magazine, February 20, 2017

It might be hard to imagine, but in the early 19th century the concept of being an American and creating Amercican art was not well recognized. Many American artists were searching for a style of art they could call their own. Then along came Thomas Cole (1801-1848)…Read entire article

A sneak preview of the Thomas Cole House restoration

By Geddy Sveikauskas, Hudson Valley One, February 19, 2017

Thomas Cole’s home on Spring Street in Catskill has left behind its near-death experience of the 1970s and as an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the National Park Service has been engaged in a recovery that would have seemed miraculous a generation ago…Read entire article

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site to Host Exhibition of 19-th Century Landscape Painter Sanford Gifford

ArtfixDaily, February 1, 2017

The exhibition will focus on his paintings of the Catskills – with works loaned by Harvard, Yale, and other leading institutions; it is curated by Dr. Kevin Avery, Senior Research Scholar at The Metropolitan Museum of Art…Read entire article

Thomas Cole Site details changes coming with May reopening

By Tim Blydenburgh, Albany Times Union, January 25, 2017 

Through hidden audio and moving-graphics presentations, visitors will be able to hear the thoughts of Thomas Cole (1801-48) and the historic conversations that took place in the parlors of his 1815 home, where America’s first major art movement, the Hudson River School of painting, was founded…Read entire article

My View: Transforming the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

By Betsy Jacks, The Daily Mail, January 13, 2017 

The home of the landscape artist Thomas Cole (1801-1848) in Catskill has been of major cultural significance since he lived there, and it became a National Historic Site in 1998. The opportunity now is to transform it into a destination renowned worldwide as the birthplace of American art…Read entire article

2016  

The Bibliophilist, Thomas Cole: Artist as Architect

By Valerie A. Balint, Nineteenth Century (published by the Victorian Society in America),V. 36 No.2 – November 2016 

To stand in the brand-new building where Thomas Cole: Artist as Architect is on view at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York is to take in the splendor of a soaring ceiling and rich red walls, replete with a visual feast of drawings, paintings, architectural renderings and books, all of which explore Cole’s lifelong interest in architecture… Read entire article

Schumer pushing for two new historic restoration projects

By Andrew Banas, News 10 ABC  – November 23, 2016

At the foot of the Catskills lays a house that is over 200-years-old, but the people who work there say they are still finding new surprises every day…“We were interested in restoring these rooms to the way it looked when Thomas Cole lived here,” Jacks said. So, they hired a painter to help. “But what he found was really extraordinary,” Jacks said… Read entire article and watch video

Cole House Finds Art in Audio 

By Greg Hudson, Columbia-Greene Media  – October 8, 2016

Curators at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill have unveiled a new audio program which will enable visitors to experience a guided tour of the site at their own pace… Read entire article

Nature Builds/We Cover at Thomas Cole House

By William Jaeger, The Albany Times Union – August 24, 2016

“Nature Builds/We Cover” at Thomas Cole House. Brightening up the old place. Exhibit features work of artist who blends sculpture, painting. … “Nature Builds/We Cover” makes the younger man’s work surprising and fresh again… Read entire article

The Painter Thomas Cole, and His Architectural Ambitions

By Joyce Beckenstein, The New York Times – May 27, 2016

This year, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site celebrates the construction of Cole’s New Studio, a replica built upon the footprint of the original building, and according to the artist’s architectural plan. The space’s inaugural exhibition, “Thomas Cole: The Artist as Architect,” through Oct. 30, is a pleasant surprise… Read entire article

Thomas Cole as Architect Exhibit to Open at Artist’s NY Home

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, CATSKILL, NY – Jan 22, 2016

The inaugural exhibit has been announced for a reconstructed building located at the upstate New York home of the founder of the Hudson River School of art.

Officials at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill say the exhibit will focus on the landscape artist’s little-known contributions to American architecture. Cole, who died in 1848, was one of the designers of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus…. Read entire article 

2015  

Over $600K Awarded to Thomas Cole Site for Interior Restoration

By Artfix Daily – September 14, 2015

Periwinkle blue walls in the foyer, lavender walls in the West Parlor, a red and gold carpet with pyramids and birds-of-paradise, and hand-painted borders by Thomas Cole himself on the walls … . These are some of the elements of the original décor of the first-floor rooms of Cole’s 1815 home that will be restored as a result of two major federal grants that were recently awarded to the Thomas Cole Historic Site: $460,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities and $150,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services…. Read entire article  

Thomas Cole’s Art Studio to Be Recreated

by Eve M. Kahn, The New York Times – July 23, 2015

The 19th-century painter Thomas Cole built an art studio with gingerbread woodwork and Hudson River views in Catskill, N.Y., but he enjoyed it for only a year or so before his death in 1848. Some brick and wooden fragments survive from the building, which was torn down in the early 1970s, while his nearby house, known as Cedar Grove, has been preserved as the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. This summer, contractors are finishing a reproduction of Cole’s design on the studio’s original foundation, basing it on vintage photos, sketches and paintings… Read entire article

Funds secured to restore wall paintings by Thomas Cole 

By WNYT Staff, WNYT – July 18, 2015

19th century Landscape artist Thomas Cole made his home in Catskill. His homestead surrounded by the beauty of the mountain range that was the subject of much of his art. But nobody knew that inside the home, Cole surrounded himself with art as well.  At least, until they were trying to figure out the original color of the parlor… Watch video

Restorer unearths historic paintings hidden in home of American master

by Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post – July 2, 2015

It was supposed to be just a quick paint job, a few days at most. But when refurbisher Matthew Mosca began chipping away at decades of old paint coating the walls in the historic home of artist Thomas Cole, he was startled to discover a tangle of delicate designs buried beneath. “You’re not going to believe this, but there’s actually hand-painted drapery and thorns on the wall here,”… Read entire article

Unknown Thomas Cole Paintings Found at His Home

By Nate Schweber, The New York Times – July 1, 2015

CATSKILL, N.Y. — Late last year, Matthew J. Mosca, a specialist in historic paint finishes, gazed up at what looked like a scrap of wallpaper. It was jutting up from an old coat of red paint covering the walls of a pantry inside the yellow-brick farmhouse where the 19th-century artist Thomas Cole displayed paintings that revolutionized American ideas about art and wilderness. But when Mr. Mosca climbed a ladder, he found it was not wallpaper, but a bold black decorative pattern… Read entire article

 

Landscape Painting Discovered on Wall in Former Thomas Cole Home 

By WNYT Staff, WNYT

CATSKILL, N.Y. – There’s a new historic discovery in Greene County. Imagine chipping away at paint prepping to throw a new coat on, and discovering a priceless work of art. That’s what happened at the old residence of Thomas Cole. Now, Senator Chuck Schumer is asking for about $600,000 from The National Endowment for the Humanities to get the rest of that painting uncovered and restored…. Watch video

Also read: Thomas Cole and the Decorative Arts  

VQR / Jean Dunbar

 

‘River Crossings’ a Contemporary Art Exhibition at 2 Historic Sites of the Hudson River School

By Daniel Van Benthuysen, The New York Times – May 28, 2015

WHEN warm weather arrives, artists by the hundreds, including me, venture outside with paint boxes and portable easels…. Read entire article

Olana, Thomas Cole site team up for an artsy house party

By Amy Biancolli, The Albany Times Union – May 1, 2015

When Thomas Cole and Frederic Church open their homes to a contemporary art exhibit on Sunday, the hosts will be nowhere to be seen. They did, after all, die in 1848 and 1900. But they’ll still be chatting up a storm… Read entire article

Additional Exhibition Coverage for “River Crossings”: 

The Wall Street Journal
The Rogovoy Report
ABC News: New and Now: Lilac Fests, Hudson River Art, Night Exhibit
Stephen Hannock sets the stage for “River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home”
Artist Pension Trust
Word Pond Blog
The Barlow Hotel Blog
PACE Gallery-Thomas Nozkowski
River Crossings Exhibit Brings Contemporary Art to the Mid-Hudson
I Love Hudson
Jerry Gretzinger highlights his work for River Crossings 
Contemporary Exhibit Set For Thomas Cole, Olana Sites
Catskill unveils proposal for cross-Hudson shuttle
New York Times- Cedar Grove, Peabody Essex and Other Niche Museums Foray Into Contemporary Art
Spectre Arts- “Contemporary Artists Head North to Pay Homage to the Hudson Valley’s Artistic Past”
Greene County Council on the Arts
Auction Central News- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” 
On the Scene- “Olana and Thomas Cole to Host Joint Exhibition, River Crossings“
New York Times- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit”
Metro Pictures Gallery- Cindy Sherman
Catskill Daily Mail- “OUR VIEW: Mr. Cole and Mr. Church, together again”
Register Star- “Cole, Church to Meet in the Abstract”
Hyperallergic “Art Movements”
New York Observer- “Contemporary Artists Head North to Pay Homage to the Hudson Valley’s Artistic Past” (AP)
New Jersey Herald- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Troy Record- “New York State News In Brief: Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Art Exhibit”
Saratogian- “New York State News In Brief: Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Art Exhibit” 
IMBY.com- “Landmark Contemporary Art Exhibition Opening May 2015?
Yahoo! News- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
ABC News- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
The Washington Post- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Newsday- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Minneapolis Star Tribune- “2 New York historic sites linked to Hudson River School hosting contemporary art exhibit” (AP)
Tampa Tribune- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
San Antonio Express News- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
The Washington Times- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Explore-Hudson-Valley.com AP Story from Yahoo! News
Explore-Hudson-Valley.com AP Story from New York Observer
Daily Freeman- “Thomas Cole, Olana historic sites to host contemporary art exhibit” (AP)
Glens Falls Post-Star “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
The Daily Star (Oneonta)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Winnipeg Free Press- “2 New York historic sites linked to Hudson River School hosting contemporary art exhibit” (AP)
Times Herald-Record (Middletown)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Beaumont (TX) Enterprise- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Lewiston Morning Tribune (ID)- “Art going on exhibit at Hudson Valley sites” (AP)
WRAL-TV (Raleigh-Durham)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
CBS6-TV (Albany, NY)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
WHAM-TV (Rochester, NY)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
WNYT-TV (Albany, NY)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
WTEN-TV News 10 (Albany, NY)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
WISH-TV (Indianapolis, IN)- “Hudson River Historic Sites Hosting Contemporary Art Exhibit” (AP)
Albany Times Union- “Cole, Church sites open doors: Contemporary artists join 19th century works for project”
Albany Times Union – Online “Chuck Close, Maya Lin, others in upcoming exhibit crossing the Hudson”

2014

Exhibition coverage for Master, Mentor, Master: Thomas Cole & Frederic Church

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/nyregion/an-exhibition-on-frederic-edwin-church-and-thomas-cole-in-catskill-ny.html?_r=0

Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/articles/art-review-master-mentor-master-thomas-cole-frederic-church-1402347440#printMode

Artfix: http://www.artfixdaily.com/calendar/print/7129-thomas-cole-and-frederic-church-master-mentor-master

The Daily Mail: http://www.thedailymail.net/news/article_ec71a1a4-e239-11e3-9aa2-001a4bcf887a.html

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/nyregion/events-in-westchester-for-june-8-14-2014.html?_r=0

iloveny: http://www.iloveny.com/thebeat/post/2014/2/Master-Mentor-Master-Thomas-Cole-Frederic-Church-Exhibition-Now-on-View/7748/#.U-OAo_ldVqU

Hudson Valley Magazine: http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/Calendar/index.php/name/Thomas-Cole-Historic-Site-presents-Thomas-Cole-Frederic-Church-Master-Mentor-Master/event/12154/

WAMC: http://wamc.org/post/master-mentor-master-thomas-cole-frederic-church-thomas-cole-historic-site

About Town: http://www.abouttown.us/index.php/events-calendar/details/5134-Master-Mentor-MasterThomas-Cole–Frederic-Church

Hudson Valley Mercantile: http://www.hvmercantile.com/tag/master-mentor-master/

Almanac: http://www.hudsonvalleyalmanacweekly.com/2014/05/16/colechurch-exhibit-opens-this-sunday-with-lecture-in-hudson-reception-in-catskill/

Chronogram: https://twitter.com/Chronogram/status/456443471490863105

Chronogram: http://www.chronogram.com/hudsonvalley/thomas-cole-and-frederic-church-master-mentor-master/Content?oid=2238891

http://www.zvents.com/catskill_ny/events/show/369643183-thomas-cole-frederic-church-master-mentor-master

Great Northern Catskills: http://www.greatnortherncatskills.com/arts-culture/thomas-cole-national-historic-site

Art Museum Touring: http://www.artmuseumtouring.com/Thomas-Cole.html

Questroyal Fine Art: http://hrs-art.com/2014/02/thomas-cole-frederic-church-exhibition/

New York History Blog: http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2014/05/12/master-mentor-master-thomas-cole-and-frederic-church/

Coco Todo: http://www.cocotodo.com/event/12686

Questroyal Fine Art: http://www.veooz.com/photos/wH8mMJB.html

Daily Voice: http://rye.dailyvoice.com/events/classes-lectures/783908/thomas-cole-frederic-church-master-mentor-master

AFA News: http://www.afanews.com/home/item/2602-%E2%80%98master-mentor-master%E2%80%99-examines-teacher-student-relationship-between-thomas-cole-and-frederic-church

June 2013

Albert Bierstadt’s Paintings Now at Thomas Cole Site

By Annette Blaugrund, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine

Albert Bierstadt! The name immediately conjures up monu­mental vistas of America’s Far West. Even in his 1902 obitu­ary, the only hint that this artist ever worked in the East was the title of one painting, On the Saco, New Hampshire. Today, as in 1902, Bierstadt is best remembered for his dramatic and atmospheric paintings of the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite, California, Wyoming, and Colorado. The focus of this article, however, is on Bierstadt’s lesser-known landscape paintings of New York and New England… Read entire article

April 2013

Hudson River Schooling

By Ralph Gardner Jr., The Wall Street Journal – April 29, 2013

My summer plans are set: I’m going to follow the Hudson River School Art Trail. Actually, it’s not quite as ambitious an undertaking as it might sound, such as traversing the full length of the Appalachian Trail which runs between Georgia and Maine. I suspect I can do it in an afternoon or two… Read entire article

April 2010

Grand Romance

By Jenna Lundin, VOGUE Magazine – April 27, 2010

Writings about New York’s celebrated Hudson River School—the nineteenth-century pioneers of American landscape painting that reached its heyday in the mid 1800’s—rarely mention the female contingent that painted alongside such famous male practitioners as Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Frederic Church. Now, for the first time, an exhibition opening Sunday at the Thomas Cole historic site in Catskill, New York, will focus exclusively on the women of the movement… Read entire article

Women Artists of the Hudson River School

By Jennifer Krieger, Antiques & Fine Art Magazine

The achievements of these women—who broke the bounds of imposed gender restrictions to carve out lives of accomplishment, adventure and independence—appear all the more extraordinary when one considers the historical and social context within which they took place… Read entire article

2009

Taking in the Views That Led to Great Art

By Benjamin Genocchio, The New York Times – October 9, 2009

A hiker can follow the Hudson River School Art Trail and wind up at the sites that inspired some of America’s important early works… Read entire article

River Views of the Hudson River School

By Elizabeth B. Jacks, American Art Review

Only ten years ago, Thomas Cole’s home stood in ruins. The graceful Federal style 1815 Main House was shedding roof shingles with each gust of wind, and a pool of water filled the basement after pipes had frozen and burst. … Read entire article

2006

A Natural Canvas

By Patricia Harris and David Lyon, The Boston Globe

CATSKILL, N.Y. In the typical Hudson River School painting, masses of cumulus clouds rise above an outsize vista of river and mountains. We always figured that those scenes were embellished by artistic license until we visited the painters’ haunts where the northern Catskill Mountains meet the Hudson River Valley.

As we crossed the Hudson on the high bridge at Castleton, the scenery was in our faces. We looked downriver past Rattlesnake and Coxsackie islands, and saw heaps of…Read entire article… (1303 words)

2005

The Hudson River School

By Susan Catto, The New York Times

We want to see some of the sights that the Hudson River School painted, if any of those places still exist. Can you suggest an itinerary, book or pamphlet that would guide us? Read entire article…

Found underground

By Bonnie Langston, Daily Freeman – January 21, 2005

The next Sunday salon at the Catskill home of Thomas Cole, founder of the famed 19th-century Hudson River School of painting, will be led by a man who learned of the artist a relatively short time ago and in a rather unusual venue – a New York City subway stop. Read entire article…

2004

Restored studio paints a life

By Timothy Cahill, Times Union – September 19, 2004

“Do you know that I have got a new painting-room?” wrote Thomas Cole to fellow painter Asher B. Durand near the end of 1839. “It answers pretty well … and being removed from the noise and bustle of the house, is really charming.” Read entire article…

Inside the artist’s studio: Cole’s work space being restored

By Jonathan Ment, Daily Freeman – September 12, 2004

An old barn behind the Thomas Cole house on Spring Street in Catskill has been an antiques shop, an apartment house and, yes, a residence for animals. Read entire article…

An American Virtuoso of Urgent visions

Timothy Cahill, Times Union – August 15, 2004

“To walk with nature as a poet,” wrote Thomas Cole, “is the necessary condition of a perfect artist.” Read entire article…

Cole’s 19th-century art studio getting a facelift

Fred Johnsen, Daily Freeman – March 6, 2004

Thomas Edison had Menlo Park, Theodore Roosevelt had Sagamore Hill, and within these places were “inner sanctums.” For Edison his laboratory, for Roosevelt his trophy room. Read entire article…