Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes

January 18 – March 1, 2008

Frederic Church (1826-1900) Marine Sunset, 1881-1882 Oil on canvas 30 1/2 x 42 inches

Frederic Church (1826-1900)
Marine Sunset, 1881-1882
Oil on canvas
30 1/2 x 42 inches

ADELSON GALLERIES IN NEW YORK presents: FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH: ROMANTIC LANDSCAPES AND SEASCAPES, A STUNNING TRAVELING LOAN EXHIBITION OF RARELY EXHIBITED WORKS

New York, NY (Winter 2007) – A selection of majestic works by America's finest 19th –century landscape painter, Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), will be on view in Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes, a loan exhibition that will open at Adelson Galleries in New York City on January 18, 2008, and remain on view there through March 1 after a successful showing in Houston at Meredith Long & Company in the fall. The show was organized by Adelson Galleries in conjunction with Michael Altman Fine Art & Advisory Services, LLC.

Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes will feature approximately 35 paintings and offer viewers a sampling of Church's creative production from the beginning of his career to its end. A veritable illustrated travelogue showing scenes from New York and New England to Central and South America (he was the first notable artist to visit the continent), from the Holy Land to Greece, landscape lovers will be able to travel back in time with the artist and see the places he enjoyed so much. The majority of the works to be shown are on loan from private collectors whose works are rarely on public display, as well as from museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Brooklyn Museum; and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; Smithsonian Institution; among others.

"We are thrilled to participate in this extraordinary exhibition of works by Frederic Edwin Church, indisputably America's greatest landscape painter of the 19th century," said Warren Adelson, president of Adelson Galleries. "We are especially grateful to the many private collectors who have lent their paintings and allowed them to be on view publicly, many for the first time. It provides a unique opportunity for all people interested in American art to gain a greater understanding of the fountainhead of landscape painting in this country."

Frederic Edwin Church was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and gained fame for his monumental canvases of some of nature's most awe-inspiring locales. Taught in Catskill, New York, by Hudson River School master Thomas Cole (1801-1848), he traveled broadly, providing him with absorbing subject matter that he made spellbinding on canvas with his extraordinary facility with brush and palette. His paintings are marked by panoramic views, closely observed detail, and careful attention to the effects of light and weather. Although he composed and edited his landscapes, the specificity with which he depicted individual elements such as trees and rocks instills them with a persuasive sense of place.

Among the highlights of Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes are:

• Coast Scene (1852) was executed during a time when Church was fascinated with marine views, and this oil on canvas represents a departure for him. In this work, the artist conveys tension in the foreground with waves crashing against large, jagged rocks, while beyond lies a calm sea and a small sailboat guided gently toward the horizon by the wind. In Coast Scene, the viewer can almost feel the humid, salty, sea air cooling as the sun begins to descend. Some experts feel that this work pays homage to J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the English painter known for his vibrant and dramatic renderings of the sea.

• Autumn (1853) is notable in that Church painted relatively few scenes of the American fall season; this example is the artist's largest known easel picture in which autumn foliage is a major feature. By the early 1850s, Church was successful enough to have received numerous painting commissions, and many of these commissioned works, of which Autumn could be one, went directly to their patrons and were never publicly exhibited.

• View on the Magdalena River (1857) was one of three major works that Church exhibited at the National Academy of Design in the spring of 1857, immediately following his triumph with Niagara (1857, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Four years earlier, Church had visited South America and traveled through hundreds of miles of scenic terrain, much of it seen from the Magdalena River. The scenery in View on the Magdalena River echoes that found in many of the artist's drawings from 1853 trip. Once back in New York, using travel sketches and his superb visual memory, Church created paintings of the continent that were unlike anything Americans had seen before.

• The Parthenon (c. 1869-70) is one of ten related studies Church created of the architectural wonder built under Pericles during the fifth century B.C. These works culminated in a major canvas, The Parthenon (1871, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), reflecting the artist's deep admiration for the site and the culture it symbolized. This oil on paper mounted on canvas represents the artist's final conceptualization of the larger composition, and is the only study remaining in private hands, having descended in the artist's family for generations.

• Marine-Sunset (1881-82) is one of the last major canvases the artist created for public exhibition before shifting his creative focus to the architecture and landscape of his beloved home, Olana. Among a group of works left to Church's daughter after his death, Marine Sunset descended in the artist's family until the 1960s, when it entered the private collection where it has since remained. This striking canvas, which has only been shown publicly twice in its 126-year history, depicts an isolated ship sailing off into one of the Church's shimmering sunsets-a metaphor for the artist himself leaving the public stage behind in a veritable blaze of glory.

A 136-page, fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Gerald L. Carr, Ph.D., head of the Frederic E. Church Catalogue Raisonné Project, Warren Adelson and Lisa Bush Hankin, director of research at Adelson Galleries, with 112 full-color reproductions will accompany this exhibition. As of January 7, 2008, the book will be distributed nationally through University Press of New England and will be available wherever books are sold.

Adelson Galleries, renowned for its expertise in American art, has made significant contributions to its study through critically acclaimed loan exhibitions and accompanying publications, including Sargent's Venice (2007), Andrew Wyeth: Helga on Paper (2007), Art in a Mirror: The Counterproofs of Mary Cassatt (2004-2005), Sargent's Women (2003), Maurice Prendergast: Paintings of America (2003), From the Artist's Studio: Unknown Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt (2000), Childe Hassam: An American Impressionist (1999) and Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes (1997).

Frederic Edwin ChurchIzza Wei-Haas2008