Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848) was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole's Hudson River School, as well as his own work, was known for its realistic and detailed portrayal of American landscape and wilderness, which feature themes of romanticism and naturalism.

Early life and education

He was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England in 1801. In 1818 his family immigrated to the United States, settling in Steubenville, Ohio, where Cole learned the rudiments of his profession from a wandering portrait painter named Stein. However, he had little success painting portraits, and his interest shifted to landscape. Moving to Pittsburgh in 1823 and then to Philadelphia in 1824, where he drew from casts at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he rejoined his parents and sister in New York City early in 1825.

Painting

In New York he sold three paintings to George W. Bruen, who financed a summer trip to the Hudson Valley where he visited the Catskill Mountain House and painted famous Kaaterskill Falls and the ruins of Fort Putnam. Returning to New York he displayed three landscape in the window of a bookstore; according to the New York Evening Post, this garnered Cole the attention of John Trumbull, Asher B. Durand, and William Dunlap. Among the paintings was a landscape called "View of Fort Ticonderoga from Gelyna". Trumbull was especially impressed with the work of the young artist and sought him out, bought one of his paintings, and put him into contact with a number of his wealthy friends including Robert Gilmor of Baltimore and Daniel Wadsworth of Hartford, who became important patrons of the artist.

Cole was primarily a painter of landscape, but he also painted allegorical works. The most famous of these are the five-part series, The Course of Empire, which depict the same landscape over generations—from a near state of nature to consummation of empire, and then decline and desolution—now in the collection of the New York Historical Society and the four-part The Voyage of Life. There are two versions of the latter, one at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the other at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York. Among Cole's other famous works are the Oxbow (1836) (pictured below), the Notch of the White Mountains, and Daniel Boone at His cabin at the Great Osage Lake.

Cole influenced his artistic peers, especially Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin Church, who studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846. Cole spent the years 1829 to 1832 and 1841-1842 abroad, mainly in England and Italy; in Florence he lived with the sculptor Horatio Greenough.

Catskills

After 1827 Cole maintained a studio at the farm called Cedar Grove in the town of Catskill, New York. He painted a significant portion of his work in this studio. In 1836 he married Maria Bartow of Catskill, a niece of the owner, and became a year-round resident. Thomas and Maria had five children:

• Theodore Alexander Cole, born January 1, 1838
• Mary Bartow Cole, born September 23, 1839
• Emily Cole, born August 27, 1843
• Elizabeth Cole, born April 5, 1847 (died in infancy)
• Thomas Cole, Jr., born September 16, 1848

Thomas Cole died at Catskill on February 11, 1848. The fourth highest peak in the Catskills is named Thomas Cole Mountain in his honor. Cedar Grove, also known as the Thomas Cole House, was declared a National Historic Site in 1999 and is now open to the public.

Architecture work

Cole dabbled in architecture, a not uncommon practice at the time when the profession was not so codified. Cole was an entrant in the design competition held in 1838 to create a new state government building in Columbus, Ohio. His entry won third premium, and many contend that the finished building, a composite of the first, second and third place entries, bears a great similarity to Cole's entry.

See also

• Hudson River School
• The Voyage of Life
• The Course of Empire
• List of Hudson River School artists

Selected works

Image:Cole Thomas The Garden of Eden 1828.jpg|The Garden of Eden (1828)Image:Cole Thomas The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton 1836.jpg|The Oxbow (1836)

Image:Cole Thomas The Departure 1837.jpg|The Departure (1837)Image:Cole Thomas The Return 1837.jpg|The Return (1837)

Image:Cole Thomas The Past 1838.jpg|The Past (1838)Image:Cole Thomas The Present 1838.jpg|The Present (1838)

Image:Cole Thomas L-Allegro (Italian Sunset 1845.jpg|L'Allegro (Italian Sunset) (1845)Image:Cole Thomas Il Penseroso 1845.jpg|Il Penseroso (1845)

References

1. Thomas Cole's View of Fort Putnam | Magazine Antiques | Find Articles at BNET
2. http://hamiltonauctiongalleries.com/COLE-T25FP.JPG
3. Thomas Cole
4. Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law
5. Cedar Grove History

External links

• Hiking Thomas Cole Mountain Catskill 3500 Club
• Cedar Grove - The Thomas Cole National Historical Site in Catskill, NY
• 141 works by Thomas Cole at www.Thomas-Cole.info
• Find-A-Grave profile for Thomas Cole
• Works by Thomas Cole at the Cincinnati Art Museum
• White Mountain paintings by Thomas Cole
• Information about Thomas Cole can be found in the Thomas Cole Collection, which contains correspondence, financial and legal documents, clippings, exhibition catalogs, poems related to him and his family, in the Albany Institute of History & Art Library.
• Thomas A. Cole Papers, 1821-1863. This finding aid contains biographical information about Cole and describes the collection of his papers (correspondence, journals, notebooks, essays and poetry) held by the New York State Library.
• Thomas Cole's Journal, 1834-1848. The journal, which was digitized by the New York State Library, contains scattered handwritten entries from November 5, 1834, through February 1, 1848.

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