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Artist’s Arabian Nights home on the Hudson was almost lost
SIX HUNDRED FEET above the Hudson River towers Olana, a fantastical mansion conceived and constructed by landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church. In the summer of 1966, Church was long dead and Olana in peril of being torn down—until a day in late June when a helicopter landed in the yard. From the aircraft emerged New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. After greeting a crowd and touring the idiosyncratic 19th-century home, Rockefeller spoke briefly of its historic significance, then signed a bill authorizing the state to acquire the property.
The autocratic politician may have stage-managed his appearance for publicity, but the urgency was real: Olana’s trove of paintings by Church and other
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller signed 11th-hour legislation that saved the home.
artists already had been removed to be readied for auction, and almost everything else of value cataloged and tagged for transport. With his 11th-hour intervention, Rockefeller, who had demolished 98 acres of old Albany to build a monolithic state-office complex, allied with the emerging cause of historic preservation.
In 1844, preeminent landscape artist Thomas Coletook an 18-year-old protégé to sketch with him along the Hudson River on a bluff affording spectacular views of the Berkshire and Catskill mountains. Located across the river from Cole’s home in the village of Catskill, 110 miles upriver from New York City, the overlook was part of the majestic terrain that had brought Cole his earliest renown. These vistas would propel Cole’s student, Frederic Edwin Church, to such success that eventually Church could build on the bluff a house that many admirers call the greatest of the younger artist’s works—in the words of art expert Franklin Kelly, “the single most important artistic residence in the United States, and one of the most significant in the world.” If not for a preservation campaign that began with one man and ended as a movement, Church’s unique residence would have been destroyed or altered beyond recognition. The painter, not only a technically bravura artist but a born showman, would have appreciated the drama surrounding the rescue of his beloved country home, and its role in a new appreciation for his art.
Olana mattered—and matters—because of the property’s connection to the Hudson River School, the first American art movement to break from traditional European techniques. Cole, widely regarded as one of the pillars of the Hudson River School, along with Church and peers like Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, and Albert Bierstadt, painted exalted depictions of a natural world in harmony with divine order, manifest destiny, and the young nation.
Having emigrated from Lancashire, England, Cole painted in New York City, initially without much success. In 1825, he sailed up the Hudson in search of transcendent wilderness and found it upstream among the mountains. Cole moved to Catskill, a mountain village, and married his landlord’s niece. The couple later inherited her uncle’s house and property, called Cedar Grove.
Cole’s theologically illumined landscapes brought him recognition, buyers, and, in 1844, an ambitious overture from young Church, a financier’s son from Hartford, Connecticut, to study with the Hudson River painter. “I have frequently heard of the beautiful and romantic scenery around Catskill,” Church wrote. “It would give me the greatest pleasure to accompany you in your rambles about the place observing nature in all her various appearances.”
Saving Frederic Church's Olana | HistoryNet
That place is beautiful.
SIX HUNDRED FEET above the Hudson River towers Olana, a fantastical mansion conceived and constructed by landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church. In the summer of 1966, Church was long dead and Olana in peril of being torn down—until a day in late June when a helicopter landed in the yard. From the aircraft emerged New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. After greeting a crowd and touring the idiosyncratic 19th-century home, Rockefeller spoke briefly of its historic significance, then signed a bill authorizing the state to acquire the property.
The autocratic politician may have stage-managed his appearance for publicity, but the urgency was real: Olana’s trove of paintings by Church and other
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller signed 11th-hour legislation that saved the home.
artists already had been removed to be readied for auction, and almost everything else of value cataloged and tagged for transport. With his 11th-hour intervention, Rockefeller, who had demolished 98 acres of old Albany to build a monolithic state-office complex, allied with the emerging cause of historic preservation.
In 1844, preeminent landscape artist Thomas Coletook an 18-year-old protégé to sketch with him along the Hudson River on a bluff affording spectacular views of the Berkshire and Catskill mountains. Located across the river from Cole’s home in the village of Catskill, 110 miles upriver from New York City, the overlook was part of the majestic terrain that had brought Cole his earliest renown. These vistas would propel Cole’s student, Frederic Edwin Church, to such success that eventually Church could build on the bluff a house that many admirers call the greatest of the younger artist’s works—in the words of art expert Franklin Kelly, “the single most important artistic residence in the United States, and one of the most significant in the world.” If not for a preservation campaign that began with one man and ended as a movement, Church’s unique residence would have been destroyed or altered beyond recognition. The painter, not only a technically bravura artist but a born showman, would have appreciated the drama surrounding the rescue of his beloved country home, and its role in a new appreciation for his art.
Olana mattered—and matters—because of the property’s connection to the Hudson River School, the first American art movement to break from traditional European techniques. Cole, widely regarded as one of the pillars of the Hudson River School, along with Church and peers like Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, and Albert Bierstadt, painted exalted depictions of a natural world in harmony with divine order, manifest destiny, and the young nation.
Having emigrated from Lancashire, England, Cole painted in New York City, initially without much success. In 1825, he sailed up the Hudson in search of transcendent wilderness and found it upstream among the mountains. Cole moved to Catskill, a mountain village, and married his landlord’s niece. The couple later inherited her uncle’s house and property, called Cedar Grove.
Cole’s theologically illumined landscapes brought him recognition, buyers, and, in 1844, an ambitious overture from young Church, a financier’s son from Hartford, Connecticut, to study with the Hudson River painter. “I have frequently heard of the beautiful and romantic scenery around Catskill,” Church wrote. “It would give me the greatest pleasure to accompany you in your rambles about the place observing nature in all her various appearances.”
Saving Frederic Church's Olana | HistoryNet
That place is beautiful.
