Thomas Cole artist
Thomas Cole artist
Thomas Cole was born in 1801 at Bolton, Lancashire in Northwestern England and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1818. During the early years Cole lived for short periods in Philadelphia, Ohio, and Pittsburgh where he worked as an itinerant portrait artist. Although primarily self-taught, Cole worked with members of the Philadelphia Academy, and his canvases were included in the Academy’s exhibitions.
In 1825, Cole discovered the haunting beauty of the Catskill wilderness. His exhibition of small paintings of Catskill landscapes came to the attention of prominent figures on the New York City art scene including Asher B. Durand, who became a life-long friend, and his fame spread. While he was still in his twenties, Cole was made a fellow of the National Academy.
In 1829-1831, Cole returned to Britain for study, to attend to family business and to travel to France and Italy. These years were among the most happy and productive of his life. Cole met a large number of wealthy Americans traveling abroad and received numerous commissions from them, increasing his reputation and stature.
Cole returned to New York City in November of 1832 and mounted an exhibition of his European paintings, which aroused considerable public interest. Shortly thereafter, Cole first established his rural studio in Catskill, New York, when he rented a small outbuilding at Cedar Grove, now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.
It was during this period that Cole began his relationship with Luman Reed. A native of Coxsackie, New York, Reed was a successful local merchant who had moved to New York City and opened a private art gallery there. He became Cole’s patron, and for Reed, Cole produced one of his best-known and popular series of paintings, known as “The Course of Empire.”
During the winter of 1835-1836, Cole stayed in Catskill working on “The Course of Empire.” During this period Cole began to express strong views concerning the impact of industrial development and its negative consequences for the wild beauty of the Catskills landscapes that were the source of inspiration for his work. The growth of the railroad by “copper-hearted barbarians” was of particular concern. In 1836, both Cole’s father and his patron Luman Reed died, but there was happiness in that year as well.
On November 22, 1836, Thomas Cole and Maria Bartow were married at Cedar Grove, which became Cole’s home. The couple was given a suite of rooms on the second floor of the house. Many of the great painters and literary figures of the day began to visit the Coles at their Catskill home. Among the calling cards in the Cole papers of the Albany Institute of History and Art is that of James Fenimore Cooper. On January 1, 1838, the Cole’s first child, Theodore Alexander Cole was born.
In March of 1839, Cole agreed to produce four paintings to be known as “The Voyage of Life” for Samuel Ward, a wealthy banker and philanthropist. The price agreed upon was $5000. Ward would die in November of that year without seeing his commission completed in December of 1840.
On August 7, 1841, Cole traveled to Europe once more, visiting relatives in England. Again, he visited France and Italy and journeyed to Switzerland. Cole was a welcome and popular guest. He painted a second “Voyage of Life” while in Italy and shipped the series to New York. Cole returned from his second European tour on the steamship “Great Western” in July of 1842.
After his return from Europe, Cole made the decision to receive baptism, confirmation and communion in the Episcopal Church and became a member of Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Catskill. Cole later designed a new church building for Saint Luke’s and for his friend and eventual biographer, the Reverend Louis L. Noble, the Church Rector.
By February of 1843, Thomas Cole was realizing that he had become a public figure and commented on this in his letters. Cole was also having financial troubles. Throughout the subsequent years, he continued to worry about selling his paintings. During this time, a number of Cole letters and poems were published in New York papers and magazines.
In May of 1844 Cole agreed to accept Frederic E. Church as a student in his studio. Church’s father agreed to pay $300 per year for young affluent Church’s instruction. This agreement lasted until June, 1846. Room and board was three dollars a week. Cole took on a second student, Benjamin McConkey, on the same terms.
In February 1846, Cole began another series of paintings to be called “The Cross and the World.” Cole’s second studio, some distance from the main house, was built during this period and was used by the artist from this time on. Cole was very proud of this building, which came to be known as the“New Studio”, and loved to show it off to visitors.
Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings | Met Exhibitions
Watch a video introduction to Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings, narrated by Sting.
Celebrated as one of America's preeminent landscape painters, Thomas Cole (1801–1848) was born in northern England at the start of the Industrial Revolution, immigrated to the United States in his youth, and traveled extensively throughout England and Italy as a young artist. He returned to America to create some of his most ambitious works and inspire a new generation of American painters.
This exhibition will examine for the first time the artist's career in relation to his European roots and travels, establishing Cole as a major figure in 19th-century landscape art within a global context.
#ThomasCole
The exhibition is made possible by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, White & Case LLP, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts.
It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The National Gallery, London.
The catalogue is made possible by the William Cullen Bryant Fellows of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Credits
Director: Kate Farrell
Producer: Melissa Bell
Editor/Animator: Stephanie Wuertz
Narrator: Sting
Writers: Nick Mafi with Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser and Shannon Vittoria
Original Music: Austin Fisher
Audio Engineer and Producer: Martin Kierszenbaum
Images courtesy of:
The Albany Institute of History & Art
The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA
© The Cleveland Museum of Art
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Digital image created by Oppenheimer Editions
Michael Fredericks, courtesy Thomas Cole National Historic Site
© 2018 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
© National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY
© New-York Historical Society
The New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Albany, New York
© Tate, London 2017
Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
The Tennessee Historical Society
© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Yale Center for British Art
© 2018 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Thomas Cole at Cedar Grove
A National Parks short about Cedar Grove, produced by WMHT.
Introduction | Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire | National Gallery
How did the founder of American landscape painting become one of art’s first eco-warriors? National Gallery curators Christopher Riopelle and Rosalind McKever consider Thomas Cole’s masterpieces ‘The Course of Empire' and ‘The Oxbow’ in the light of his roots in the British Industrial Revolution and his fears for the fate of the American wilderness.
Watch empires rise and fall, and lose yourself in the vast American wilderness, in the first UK exhibition dedicated to Thomas Cole − the greatest American landscape artist of his generation.
Book tickets online and save:
11 June – 7 October 2018
Ground Floor Galleries
A self-taught artist from Bolton in England, Thomas Cole (1801–1848) was the greatest American landscape artist of his generation.
This exhibition is a rare chance to see Cole’s epic works – mostly travelling from America – including his masterpiece the ‘Oxbow’, and his awe-inspiring portrayals of Eden showing the force of nature.
Cole’s paintings are shown alongside the sublime masterpieces that inspired him, such as swirling storms painted by Turner and nightmarish battle scenes created by Constable.
While you’re here, see a free exhibition – inspired by Cole’s ‘The Course of Empire’ – by arguably the most famous artist working in Los Angeles today, Ed Ruscha:
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Thomas Cole to Thomas Moran: 19th-Century American Landscapes at the Maier
Metropolitan Museum of American Art Research Associate, Dr. Shannon Vittoria, explores the development of 19th-century American landscape painting through a series of works from Randolph College's collection, focusing on the European roots and transatlantic travels of artists including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, George Inness, and Thomas Moran, among others.
Vittoria joined the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of American Art in October 2015. She specializes in American painting and works on paper, with a focus on landscape art and women artists. She contributed to the research and organization of Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings (2018). As an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in the department (2013-14), she assisted with research for Thomas Hart Benton's America Today Mural Rediscovered (2014–15).
Vittoria received her PhD in art history from the City University of New York's Graduate Center, where she completed her doctoral dissertation, Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran (1842–1899). She has held curatorial research positions at the Frick Collection, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the New York Historical Society.
This lecture is the 2nd Annual Sandra Whitehead Memorial Lecture, a series which highlights works from the Randolph College Collection. The series is supported by the Honorable Paul Whitehead, Jr. and was established in 2018 in memory of his wife Sandra Stone Whitehead.
Boston Corps of Cadets Coat Reproduction | Historic Sites | Historic Places to Visit
FORT TICONDEROGA - See the process of recreating history, from research and study original clothing, to reproducing clothing. Explore the Fort's own Boston Corps of Cadet's coat and how it relates to the May 10th 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen.
Experience Fort Ticonderoga's epic history! Join us in 2012 and step back in time to the year 1775 as the newly-formed American army begins to repair and refortify Ticonderoga as the critical American stronghold on Lake Champlain.
Introduction to the Exhibition: The American Pre-Raphaelites: Radical Realists
Linda S. Ferber, museum director emerita and senior art historian, New-York Historical Society, and Barbara Dayer Gallati, curator emerita of American art, Brooklyn Museum
In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Ruskin (1819–1900), the most influential art critic of the Victorian era, the Gallery presents The American Pre-Raphaelites: Radical Realists, an exhibition of more than 90 artworks created by American artists who were profoundly influenced by Ruskin’s call for a revolutionary change in the practice of art. A group of artists, architects, scientists, critics, and collectors sympathetic to Ruskin’s ideas formed the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art, which sought reform not only in artistic practices but also in the broader political arena. Most were abolitionists deeply engaged in the fight against slavery, and coded references to the Civil War are present in a number of landscape paintings. Members of the group heeded Ruskin’s call to record the natural world faithfully; they also created works that often include a rich political subtext. Linda S. Ferber and Barbara Dayer Gallati delivered a paired lecture on April 14, 2019, at the National Gallery of Art to introduce the exhibition.
The Sixty-Sixth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: The Forest: America in the 1830s, Part 1
The Sixty-Sixth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: The Forest: America in the 1830s, Part 1: Herodotus among the Trees
The Sixty-Sixth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: The Forest: America in the 1830s, Part 2
The Sixty-Sixth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: The Forest: America in the 1830s, Part 2: The Tavern to the Traveler: On the Appearance of John Quidor’s Art
Seascape in the Dutch Golden Age
Seascape in the Dutch Golden Age: Crowded Harbors, Fierce Battles, Harrowing Shipwrecks, and Tranquil Waters
Marine painting is among the distinctive inventions of Dutch 17th-century culture, and it has long been identified with the importance of the sea and seafaring for the rise and prosperity of the Dutch Republic and its citizens’ well-being. Dutch marine art is not, however, a single subject but presents a body of images remarkable for its ubiquity in society and variety of media, audiences, and purposes. Exploring glowing views of crowded harbors, gripping images of battles and triumphs, appalling scenes of shipwreck, and meditative glimpses of coastal and inland waters, Lawrence O. Goedde, Professor of Art History at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, discusses the differing functions of marine images and the meanings they held for the Dutch of the Golden Age. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Fund.
Sarah Cash: Encouraging American Genius: William Wilson Corcoran, Collector
Sarah Cash, Associate Curator of American and British Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. presents her lecture, Encouraging American Genius: William Wilson Corcoran, Collector” on Saturday, March 4, 2017. This lecture is part of the symposium Made in the USA: Collecting American Art during the Long Nineteenth Century presented by the Center for the History of Collecting at The Frick Collection on Friday and Saturday, March 3-4, 2017.
[previously hosted on Vimeo: 76 views]
Martin Van Buren | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Martin Van Buren
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
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Martin Van Buren (born Maarten Van Buren, December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841. A founder of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the ninth Governor of New York, the tenth U.S. Secretary of State, and the eighth Vice President of the United States. He won the 1836 presidential election with the endorsement of popular outgoing President Andrew Jackson and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party. He lost his 1840 reelection bid to Whig Party nominee William Henry Harrison due in part to the poor economic conditions of the Panic of 1837. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and important anti-slavery leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York to a family of Dutch Americans; his father was a Patriot during the American Revolution. He was raised speaking Dutch and learned English at school, making him the only U.S. President who spoke English as a second language. He trained as a lawyer and quickly became involved in politics as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. He won election to the New York State Senate and became the leader of the Bucktails, the faction of Democratic-Republicans opposed to Governor DeWitt Clinton. Van Buren established a political machine known as the Albany Regency and in the 1820s emerged as the most influential politician in his home state. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1821 and supported William H. Crawford in the 1824 presidential election. John Quincy Adams won the 1824 election and Van Buren opposed his proposals for federally funded internal improvements and other measures. Van Buren's major political goal was to re-establish a two-party system with partisan differences based on ideology rather than personalities or sectional differences, and he supported Jackson's candidacy against Adams in the 1828 presidential election with this goal in mind. To support Jackson's candidacy, Van Buren ran for Governor of New York and resigned a few months after assuming the position to accept appointment as U.S. Secretary of State after Jackson took office in 1829.
Van Buren was a key advisor during Jackson's eight years as President of the United States and he built the organizational structure for the coalescing Democratic Party, particularly in New York. He resigned from his position in order to help resolve the Petticoat affair, then briefly served as the American ambassador to Britain. At Jackson's behest, the 1832 Democratic National Convention nominated Van Buren for Vice President of the United States and he took office after the Democratic ticket won the 1832 presidential election. With Jackson's strong support, Van Buren faced little opposition for the presidential nomination at the 1835 Democratic National Convention, and he defeated several Whig opponents in the 1836 presidential election. Van Buren's response to the Panic of 1837 centered on his Independent Treasury system, a plan under which the Federal government of the United States would store its funds in vaults rather than in banks. He also continued Jackson's policy of Indian removal; he maintained peaceful relations with Britain but denied the application to admit Texas to the Union, seeking to avoid heightened sectional tensions. In the 1840 election, the Whigs rallied around Harrison's military record and ridiculed Van Buren as Martin Van Ruin and a surge of new voters helped turn him out of office.
At the opening of the Democratic convention in 1844, Van Buren was the leading candidate for the party's nomination for the presidency, but his continued opposition to the annexation of Texas aroused the opposition of Southern Democrats and the party nominated James K. Polk. Van Buren grew increasingly opposed to slavery after he left office, and he agreed to lead a third party ...
Kimberly Orcutt: The American Art-Union Experiment
Kimberly Orcutt, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum presents her lecture, The American Art-Union Experiment” on Friday, March 3, 2017. This lecture is part of the symposium Made in the USA: Collecting American Art during the Long Nineteenth Century presented by the Center for the History of Collecting at The Frick Collection on Friday and Saturday, March 3-4, 2017.
[previously hosted on Vimeo: 99 views]
Clarice Smith Lecture: Edward Rothstein
The Great Gildersleeve: Engaged to Two Women / The Helicopter Ride / Leroy Sells Papers
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.