CURRENT EVENTS

2012 Sunday Salons

Sundays at 2 pm

Authors, writers, artists and great speakers from all across the country (and abroad!) are coming to the home of Thomas Cole. Join us on Sunday afternoons once per month for talks, wine, and lively conversation at our popular Sunday Salon series. Tickets are $8 per person or $6 for members. Admission is first-come-first served.

January 15, 2012
The Hunt for Thomas Cole’s Last Lost Series: The Cross and the World
by Christine I. Oaklander

In the late 1980s, a legendary New York art dealer acquired an oil study for one of five large paintings in Cole’s monumental unfinished series, The Cross and the World, which he sold to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Learning that the series – still in Cole’s New Studio at the time of his death – had vanished from sight in the 1870s, the dealer sent his executive assistant, Christine I. Oaklander, out to hunt them down. Dr. Oaklander, now a private art consultant and arts coordinator for Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania, will discuss the history and iconography of Cole’s last, lost series and give us a “behind the scenes” glimpse of her quest.

February 12, 2012
Thomas Cole in Love
by Kevin Sharp

In 1825, young Thomas Cole stepped out of the Catskills autumn with a body of work so exceptional that it kicked America’s drowsy cultural ambitions into a new state of excitement. After seeing Cole’s first paintings of the Hudson River and Kaaterskill Clove, New York’s most distinguished tastemakers hailed him as the very future of American visual arts. Join Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea Director, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, as he explores Cole’s use of Romantic imagery from English poets such as Byron and Coleridge to create dramatic works that stood in stark contrast to the gentle landscape images that had come before.

March 11, 2012
Thomas Cole Exhibition at the Louvre
by Katherine Bourguignon

In 2012, Thomas Cole has his own exhibition at the Louvre! In collaboration with the Terra Foundation for American Art, the High Museum of Art and the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the musée du Louvre kicks off a series of one-room exhibitions, each featuring a different American artist, starting with Cole. Entitled “New Frontier: Thomas Cole and the Birth of Landscape Painting in America,” the exhibition will travel to the United States after its premiere at the Louvre. Join us as Dr. Bourguignon, associate curator from the Terra Foundation for American Art Europe, travels all the way from Paris, France, to speak about this remarkable new exhibition.

April 15, 2012
Thomas Cole’s New Studio
by Julie Levin Caro

Drawing from his experiences as a landscape painter and an artist-tourist in Italy as well as his knowledge of picturesque landscape theory, Thomas Cole actively shaped the built environment of his home and studio at Cedar Grove during the 1830s and 1840s. Julie Levin Caro, art history professor at Warren Wilson College, Asheville, North Carolina, offers a new perspective on Thomas Cole’s artistic identity by describing his design and siting of a rustic Italianate cottage studio as a means of enacting and immortalizing his identity as an artist-gentleman, a political conservative and an American.

Guided HikesView from the Catskill Mountain House site.

The Thomas Cole Historic Site is pleased to present a series of guided hikes on the Hudson River School Art Trail, which brings you into the magnificent landscapes that inspired Thomas Cole and other luminaries of 19th-century landscape painting. The hikes are made possible through the Carol T. Savage Art Trail Docent Program, named in honor of our late friend and former Board Chairman. The schedule of hikes is below.

The package price per person is $16, or $12 for members, and includes the following components:

• A copy of the Hudson River School Art Trail Guidebook, a 48-page book with full-color illustrations ($7.95 value)
• A guided tour of the Thomas Cole Historic Site at the end of your hike ($9 value)
• The guided hike/walk along the Hudson River School Art Trail

Check back here soon for the 2012 Hike Schedule

Reservations are required in advance.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE HIKE INFORMATION SHEET.

After you have read the information sheet above,

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE A RESERVATION FOR A HIKE.

Claude Mirror Installation

Live Web Streaming of Thomas Cole's View

Contemporary artist Alex McKay has installed an optical device called a "Claude Mirror" at the Thomas Cole Historic Site, aimed at the view towards the Catskill Mountains that Cole painted more than any other. A "web cam" is now aimed at the mirror, enabling you to see the view live, at any time of day or season. Click here to see the live streaming video and to learn more about the project.