This summer, Frederic E. Church’s magnificent home, Olana, will present an exhibition titled Maine Sublime that will include nearly 30 oil and graphite sketches by the master of outdoor painting.
“Wood Interior on Mount Turner,” by Frederic Edwin Church, c. 1877, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 12 5/16 x 20 5/16 in., OL.1980.1869, Collection of Olana, NYSOPRHP
The Olana Partnership and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation present Maine Sublime: Frederic Edwin Church’s Landscapes of Mount Desert and Mount Katahdin, an exhibition exploring the half-century during which famed American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) traveled to and was inspired by the landscapes of Maine. Organized by renowned curator, art historian, and professor of American art John Wilmerding, Maine Sublime is scheduled to open in the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery at Olana in Hudson, New York, on Sunday June 9, where it will run through the end of October.
“Cliffs and Rocky Cove, Mount Desert Island,” by Frederic Edwin Church, c. 1850, oil on cardboard, 12 1/8 x 16 1/8 in., OL.1980.1871, Collection of Olana, NYSOPRHP
This exhibition brings together 23 oil sketches from the Olana collection and four loans from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the Portland Museum of Art; and private collections. The exhibition will also includes some of Olana’s masterpieces, including “Twilight, A Sketch” (1858), the oil study for the great Maine composition “Twilight in the Wilderness” (1860). In 1859, Church had the audacity to send “Twilight, A Sketch” to the annual exhibition at the National Academy in New York as a “coming attraction” for the larger work, which would be on display the next year as a single-picture exhibition. For more information, visit www.olana.org.
