History, Natural History & the Arts
May 4 marks the 200th birthday of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the Hudson River School painter who helped shape how Americans imagined Upstate New York.
Over at The Jiffy, a podcast about the arts and sciences of upstate, James Cave kicks off a three-part series marking the 200th Anniversary of Frederic Church’s birth. He starts at Olana, looking out at the same view Church called “the center of the world.” [Read more…] about Celebrating Painter Frederic Church’s 200th Anniversary
Modeled on her acclaimed On the High Line (now in its third edition from Fordham University Press), Annik LaFarge’s Composing Olana: A Journey on Foot Through Frederic Church’s Greatest Work of Art (Forham, 2026) unfolds as a series of walks along the seven carriage roads Frederic Edwin Church built in 1860s-1880s.
Along the way, LaFarge unpacks the history of everything we see, and much that we don’t, in the greater landscape, from the Ice Age geology that created it to the artists and conservationists who preserved it. [Read more…] about Composing Olana: A Journey Through Frederic Church’s Greatest Work of Art
Every year, more than nine million people come from all over the globe to experience the bucket-list waterfalls at Niagara Falls State Park. With attractions like the Cave of the Winds decks and the iconic Maid of the Mist boat tour of the base of Niagara Falls, visitors can experience the power of the Falls first hand.
Established in 1885, Niagara Falls State Park holds the distinction of being the oldest state park in the United States. The creation of the park marked a significant milestone in conservation history. [Read more…] about The Movement to Save Niagara Falls
The new Frederic Church Center for Art and Landscape at Olana State Historic Site is officially open. The carbon-neutral visitor center serves as a gateway to the site and a hub for interpretive programming and recreation. The sustainably designed, all-electric building is the first structure built at Olana since Church’s lifetime. [Read more…] about New Visitor Center at Olana State Historic Site
The new edition of After Icebergs with a Painter A Summer Voyage to Labrador and around Newfoundland (Black Dome Press, 2022), by Louis Legrand Noble with an introduction by William L. Coleman, looks at an internationally renowned American artist of fame and fortune at the very peak of his powers.
A pastor and lauded writer with a sharp eye for revealing and humorous detail, Noble describes a journey fraught with danger and drama aboard the schooner Integrity to the latitudes where icebergs dwell with Hudson River School painter Frederic Church. [Read more…] about After Icebergs: A NY Artist’s 1859 Arctic Adventure
Olana State Historic Site will undergo a $25 million site improvement project over the next two years, including construction of the Frederic Church Center for Art and Landscape, a new entry and orientation facility at the historic site in Hudson, Columbia County.
The sustainably designed, all-electric Frederic Church Center will be a gateway to all visitors to Olana State Historic Site [Read more…] about $25M in Improvements Planned for Olana State Historic Site
David McAlpin, a principal at Fradkin & McAlpin Architects, is among a group of 21 noted architects and landscape architects, including Steven Holl, Laurie D. Olin, Peter Pennoyer and Diana Balmori, who have been invited to solve a mystery that is more than 130 years old.
Each was asked to submit a design for “the Summer House” at Olana, the Hudson, New York, estate of the great American landscape artist Frederic Church. [Read more…] about Exhibit: Frederic Church’s Summer House at Olana
Artist Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932), the son of Albany sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer, enjoyed a revival of interest in the art world in the 2010s. It became common to see his paintings in art magazines and at major auctions across the country, bringing record prices for his oils and watercolors.
As an artist who preferred living and working in his home community of Albany, rather than New York City, Palmer carried forward the creative genius that emerged in the region generations earlier with the Hudson River School and his father’s own sculpture. [Read more…] about Albany Artist Walter Launt Palmer: A Short Biography
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