Frederic Church

On the two-hundredth anniversary of Frederic Edwin Church's birth, leading scholars explore how his wide-ranging work continues to resonate in today's world

The work of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), renowned American landscape painter, was indelibly shaped by global travel. Church's art was defined by place: early trips took him to South America, across the northeastern United States, and to the Arctic; later he visited the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East; in his final decades, he spent long sojourns in Mexico. Intimate drawings and oil sketches executed on-site illuminate his encounters with new environments and cultures; large, extravagantly detailed paintings produced for public exhibition made him internationally famous. The designed landscapes, extensive collections, and striking architecture of his home, Olana, in the Hudson Valley, reflect the many worlds through which he traveled.

In Frederic Church: Global Artist, original essays by scholars from across the humanities reveal Church as an artist enmeshed in the economic and territorial expansionism of the nineteenth century. Church's works engage with questions of industrialization and environmental destruction, the rise and fall of empires, the construction of national identity, and the cataclysmic effects of slavery and civil war. This lavishly illustrated volume examines the artist in his time and demonstrates his continuing relevance in our own.

Published in association with the Olana Partnership

Exhibition Schedule:

Olana NY State Historic Site (May 17-October 25, 2026)