"Open Air Sketching: Ninteenth-Century American Landscape Drawing in the Albany Institute of History and Art"
2000-05-19 until 2000-09-03
Hudson River Museum
Yonkers, NY, USA United States of America

This exhibition presents 19th-century American drawings by Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Sanford Gifford, Jasper Cropsey and other members of the Hudson River School. It includes rarely seen works by Cole and other first generation Hudson River School painters who popularized open-air sketching as a crucial preliminary stage of a completed landscape painting. By directly portraying scenic vistas and individual tress, rocks and flowers, artists collected the necessary data for their grand studio canvases that would be true to nature.

Gradually, these drawings were appreciated for their own artistic merit and even produced as finished pieces or presentation drawings. In an era before photography was commonplace, artists also used drawing as a means of recording and copying other important works of art. This exhibit, as well as the accompanying catalogue, will be organized into two sections: sketchbooks with studies of individual motifs, and preparatory records with presentation drawings. These drawings are on loan from the Albany Institute of History and Art.

Related Links:

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