Thomas Cole, Revisited

The Greenwich Decorative Arts Society hosted a fantastic lecture this week at the Bruce Museum given by Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Alice Pratt Brown Curator of  American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The lecture "New Approaches to the Hudson River School," presented fascinating new discoveries found during Kornhauser and co-curator Tim Barringer's research journey reevaluating the work of Thomas Cole.

Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908, Acc. No.08.228

During the lecture we learned about Cole's "proto-environmentalism," his admiration for the untamed wilderness and his love for Italy. His successors in the Hudson River School included Frederic Edwin Church, Asher B. Durand and, later, John Frederick Kensett and Sanford Gifford.

We see numerous Hudson River School paintings cross the auction block and in recent years they have not attracted the attention (and prices) of Modern and Contemporary works. We are thrilled that this research brought Cole and the Hudson River School artists into the current conversation to demonstrate how timeless these paintings are.

We'll certainly be looking more closely at the next Hudson River landscape that comes in!

For more information read a NYT review of the exhibition here.

The catalog is available online through the Met Museum store: Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings

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