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Frederic Edwin Church
1826–1900
BirthplaceHartford, Connecticut, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyArtist-explorer Frederic Edwin Church devoted his career to the celebratory recording of the epic wonders of the natural world in panoramic landscape paintings that blend carefully observed, realistic detail and a sense of nature’s drama. The son of a wealthy Hartford, Connecticut, businessman, Church was the first student to work under renowned landscape painter Thomas Cole, considered the founder of the Hudson River school, America’s first native movement in landscape painting. Soon after opening his own studio in New York City in 1847, Church became active in the city’s artistic community, and at age twenty-two was one of the youngest artists ever elected to full membership in the prestigious National Academy of Design.
Church’s early works were large, romantic landscapes of New England and Hudson River scenes. However, his approach to nature soon shifted under the influence of the art theories of English critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) and the scientific writings of German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), who advocated the exhaustive scientific description of nature as a means of discovering a cosmic plan. Following Humboldt’s example, Church became an intrepid explorer, gathering material in drawings and oil sketches made on-site for the paintings he executed in his New York studio.
In 1853 Church became the first American artist to explore South America; the paintings he completed in his studio in the following two years won universal acclaim. His return visit to the Andes of Ecuador in 1857 signaled a maturing of Church’s painting, characterized by more intense color and a greater attention to atmosphere. Church later traveled to the Arctic Circle and to Jamaica, and made an eighteen-month tour of Europe and the Middle East. Widely exhibited and lauded, his grand depictions of these far-flung locales secured Church’s international reputation as America’s foremost landscape painter and the successor to English romantic landscapist William J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851).
Church’s early works were large, romantic landscapes of New England and Hudson River scenes. However, his approach to nature soon shifted under the influence of the art theories of English critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) and the scientific writings of German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), who advocated the exhaustive scientific description of nature as a means of discovering a cosmic plan. Following Humboldt’s example, Church became an intrepid explorer, gathering material in drawings and oil sketches made on-site for the paintings he executed in his New York studio.
In 1853 Church became the first American artist to explore South America; the paintings he completed in his studio in the following two years won universal acclaim. His return visit to the Andes of Ecuador in 1857 signaled a maturing of Church’s painting, characterized by more intense color and a greater attention to atmosphere. Church later traveled to the Arctic Circle and to Jamaica, and made an eighteen-month tour of Europe and the Middle East. Widely exhibited and lauded, his grand depictions of these far-flung locales secured Church’s international reputation as America’s foremost landscape painter and the successor to English romantic landscapist William J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851).