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Frederic Edwin Church

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Frederic Edwin Church
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(born May 4, 1826, Hartford, Conn., U.S. — died April 7, 1900, near New York, N.Y.) U.S. landscape painter. He studied with Thomas Cole in Catskill, N.Y., and soon became one of the most prominent members of the Hudson River school. He traveled widely, seeking out spectacular scenery and marvels of nature such as Niagara Falls, volcanoes, icebergs, and the tropical forests of South America, and he achieved fame and success at home and in Europe. His house, Olana, on the Hudson River, is now a museum.

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Art Encyclopedia: Frederic Edwin Church
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(b Hartford, CT, 4 May 1826; d New York, 7 April 1900). American painter. He was a leading representative of the second generation of the HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL, who made an important contribution to American landscape painting in the 1850s and 1860s. The son of a wealthy and prominent businessman, he studied briefly in Hartford with two local artists, Alexander Hamilton Emmons (1816-84) and Benjamin Hutchins Coe (1799-1883). Thanks to the influence of the Hartford patron DANIEL WADSWORTH, in 1844 he became the first pupil accepted by Thomas Cole. This was an unusual honour, though Cole probably offered little useful technical instruction

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Biography: Frederick Edwin Church
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The works of American painter Frederick Edwin Church (1826-1900) marked the culmination of romantic landscape painting in America and the final great expression of the group of artists identified as the Hudson River school.

Frederick Edwin Church was born in Hartford, Conn., into a prominent family. At an early age he decided to become an artist. He studied for a short time with Benjamin Coe, then went to Catskill, N.Y., in 1844 to study with Thomas Cole, one of the foremost painters of the Hudson River school. Though Cole died 4 years later, Church had already formed his style in the tradition of his master. He wished to travel and he read with interest Kosmos, a book by the young German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. This description of a 4-year trip to unexplored areas of Latin America inspired Church, who went to Ecuador and Colombia in 1853 and again in 1857. On these trips Church made many beautifully executed pencil drawings, which he later worked up into paintings showing detailed tropical foliage with Mt. Cotopaxi or Mt. Chimborazo in the distance.

In the summer of 1859 Church went to Labrador with Cole's biographer. Church was impressed by the dramatic aspect of icebergs and made many sketches. In 1865 he went to Jamaica and once again enjoyed sketching in a tropical environment. On his first trip to Europe, in 1868, he visited the Bavarian Alps, Italy, and Greece, as well as Palestine and Syria. A remarkable series of small oil sketches gives a pictorial account of these travels and indicates a very important side of his work, for they have a brilliance and spontaneity often lacking in his large canvases. Church made full use of his sense of the dramatic when depicting grandiose scenery. He had a remarkable feeling for light and atmosphere. His vividly painted sunsets seem almost explosive and anticipate 20th-century expressionism.

When he returned to America, Church built "Olana," a large country house on a mountaintop commanding an unsurpassed view of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains beyond. This semi-Moorish structure designed by the artist with the help of the architect Calvert Vaux has been preserved as a museum. Here Church assembled paintings collected in Italy, Turkish carpets, Moorish tiles, and Near Eastern brass. After subsequent trips to Mexico, he added religious paintings and pre-Columbian sculpture and terra-cottas. Some paintings by Cole and some of Church's own hang in the house.

Church was enormously successful as a painter in his own time, and he amassed a considerable fortune. However, he was crippled by arthritis and unable to paint during the last 20 years of his life.

Further Reading

David C. Huntington, The Landscapes of Frederick Edwin Church (1966), is a sympathetic study of the man and his art and is the only critical work. Frederick A. Sweet, The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition (1945), includes a short discussion of Church. Further background material is in Oliver W. Larkin, Art and Life in America (1949; rev. ed. 1960).

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Frederick Edwin Church
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Church, Frederick Edwin, 1826-1900, American landscape painter of the Hudson River school, b. Hartford, Conn., studied with Thomas Cole at Catskill, N.Y. He traveled and painted in North and South America and in Europe and excelled in panoramic scenes. He painted exotic and foreign landscapes as well as the native scenery favored by other members of the school. His large canvases are noted for the accuracy and clarity of the scenery portrayed, and for a crystalline rendering of light that links him to luminism. Notable works include Niagara (1857; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.) and Heart of the Andes (1859; Metropolitan Mus., New York City).

Bibliography

See studies by G. L. Carr (1981) and F. Kelly (1989).

Wikipedia: Frederic Edwin Church
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For the silent film actor, see Fred Church.
Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church
Born May 4, 1826(1826-05-04)
Hartford, Connecticut.
Died April 7, 1900 (aged 73)
Nationality American
Field Landscape art, Painting
Movement Hudson River School
Influenced by Thomas Cole

Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. While committed to the natural sciences, he was "always concerned with including a spiritual dimension in his works".[1]

The family wealth came from Church's father, Joseph Church, a silversmith and watchmaker in Hartford, Connecticut.(Joseph subsequently also became an official and a director of The Aetna Life Insurance Company) Joseph, in turn, was the son of Samuel Church, who founded the first paper mill in Lee, Massachusetts in the Berkshires, and this allowed him(Frederic) to pursue his interest in art from a very early age. At eighteen years of age, Church became the pupil of Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York after Daniel Wadsworth, a family neighbor and founder of the Wadsworth Atheneum, introduced the two. In May 1848, Church was elected as the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design and was promoted to Academician the following year. Soon after, he sold his first major work to Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum.

Church settled in New York where he taught his first pupil, William James Stillman. From the spring to autumn each year Church would travel, often by foot, sketching. He returned each winter to paint and to sell his work.

In 1853 and 1857, Church traveled in South America. One trip was financed by businessman Cyrus West Field, who wished to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures. Church was inspired by the Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos and his exploration of the continent; Humboldt had challenged artists to portray the "physiognomy" of the Andes.[1]

Heart of the Andes (1859), Metropolitan Museum of Art
Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860, Cleveland Museum of Art
Morning in The Tropics, National Gallery of Art

Two years after returning to America, Church painted The Heart of the Andes (1859), now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the Tenth Street Studio in New York City. It is more than five feet high and nearly ten feet in length (167.9 × 302.9 cm). Church unveiled the painting to an astonished public in New York City in 1859. The painting's frame had drawn curtains fitted to it, creating the illusion of a view out a window. The audience sat on benches to view the piece and Church strategically darkened the room, but spotlighted the landscape painting. Church also brought plants from a past trip to South America to heighten the viewers' experience. The public were charged admission and provided with opera glasses to examine the painting's details. The work was an instant success. Church eventually sold it for $10,000, at that time the highest price ever paid for a work by a living American artist.

Church showed his paintings at the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design, the American Art Union, and at the Boston Art Club, alongside Thomas Cole, Asher Brown Durand, John F. Kensett, and Jasper F. Cropsey. Critics and collectors appreciated the new art of landscape on display, and its progenitors came be to called the Hudson River School.

In 1860 Church bought a farm in Hudson, New York and married Isabel Carnes. Both Church's first son and daughter died in March, 1865 of diphtheria, but he and his wife started a new family with the birth of Frederic Joseph in 1866. When he and his wife had a family of four children, they began to travel together. In 1867 they visited Europe and the Middle East, allowing Church to return to painting larger works.

Before leaving on that trip, Church purchased the eighteen acres (73,000 m²) on the hilltop above his Hudson farm—land he had long wanted because of its magnificent views of the Hudson River and the Catskills. In 1870 he began the construction of a Persian-inspired mansion on the hilltop and the family moved into the home in the summer of 1872. Richard Morris Hunt was the architect for Cosy Cottage at Olana, and was consulted early on in the plans for the mansion, but after the Church's trip to Europe and what is now Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, the English architect Calvert Vaux was hired to complete the project. Church was deeply involved in the process, even completing his own architectural sketches for its design. This highly personal and eclectic castle incorporated many of the design ideas that he had acquired during his travels.

Olana State Historic Site is now owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Taconic Region and receives extensive support from The Olana Partnership, a private, non-profit organization.

The main house is open to the public for guided tours. A visitor center offers a film and panel exhibit as well as a Museum Shop, operated by The Olana Partnership, offering books and many items inspired by the exotic locales of Church’s travels and paintings. The grounds are open year-round, 8am-sunset, for hiking, picnicking, snowshoeing or just enjoying the view.

Contents

Works

Among Church's paintings are:

See also

Gallery

The Icebergs, 1861, Dallas Museum of Art

Cotopaxi, 1862

Aurora Borealis, 1865

Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp, 1895

The Andes of Ecuador, c. 1855, Honolulu Academy of Arts

References

  1. ^ a b Büttner, Nils (2006). Landscape Painting: A History. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers. pp. 283–285. ISBN 0-7892-0902-0. 

External links

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