Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church (1826 - 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".
The wealth of Church's father allowed him to pursue his interest in
art from a very early age. At eighteen years of age, Church became
the pupil of Thomas Cole in Palenville, New York. He was elected as
a member of the National Academy of Design five years later, in
1849. Soon after, he sold his first major work to Hartford'ss
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.
Church showed his paintings at the annual exhibitions of the
National Academy of Design and the American Art Union, 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 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20
commemorative stamps entitled "
Four
Centuries of American Art", one of which featured Frederic Edwin
Church's "Niagara"
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