America’s vision of itself as a unique country is rooted in the Hudson River Valley. The wild mountains and forests were in sharp contrast to the tamed European countryside, but it took artists to celebrate that difference as a strength of the new nation and its developing character. The paintings of Samuel Morse (1791–1872), Thomas Doherty (1793 –1856), Asher Durand (1796 –1886), Thomas Cole (1801–1848), Jasper Cropsey (1823 –1900), Frederic Church (1826–1900), and Albert Bierstadt (1830 –1900), and numerous others documented and shaped American attitudes toward nature.

 

Hudson River School of Painting

ArtLex
ArtLex, art dictionary site, listing on the Hudson River School and associated web-links.

Albany Institute of History and Art
This page of the Albany Institute of History and Art site contains a brief summary and an index of Hudson River School paintings in their collection.

Colonization and the 'Other': Psychoanalytic Trends in the Hudson River School of Art
Research paper by Jessica Hawkins, Marist '22.

Newington-Cropsey Foundation
This Newington-Cropsey Foundation website is intended to provide information about the Foundation, the artist Jasper Cropsey, and the Hudson River School of Art.

Ringwood Manor
"Ringwood Manor is a National Historic Landmark District, having historical importance spanning from Native American inhabitance through the early 20th century." Located in the Hudson Highlands in Northern New Jersey, this site also has a collection of Hudson River School paintings.

Frederic E. Church (1826-1900)
"Frederic Church, one of the premier American landscape painters, will forever be associated with the Hudson River Valley, where he painted and made his home. Immensely popular in the mid-19th century, his paintings are characterized by a calmness and sense of hope."

Thomas Cole (1801-1848) "In 1825, Cole discovered the haunting beauty of the Catskill wilderness. His exhibition of small paintings of Catskill landscapes came to the attention of prominent figures on the New York City art scene."

Asher B. Durand (1796-1886)
"An active member of the New York art community, Durand was instrumental in organizing the New-York Drawing Association in 1825 (later the National Academy of Design, which he served as president from 1845 to 1861."

William Dunlap (1766-1839)
"The first historian of the American stage, William Dunlap was a passionate lover of the arts, a gifted painter, a tireless chronicler of his day and a writer of considerable charm."

Sanford R. Gifford (1823-1880)
"Gifford's earliest works show the combined influence of Thomas Cole's style and his own nature studies."

 

Hudson River School Estates

Frederic Church's estate, Olana
"The mission of the Olana Partnership is to advocate for and support the preservation of Olana and its integral view shed, to sponsor educational programs, and to foster scholarly educational research on the artist and his property." 

Cedar Grove
"Cedar Grove, the home of Thomas Cole, is one of a very limited number of National Historic Landmarks having extraordinary significance in the cultural development of the United States. It was here that Thomas Cole established a tradition of Native American landscape painting which continues to grow in importance and has come to be identified as the Hudson River School of Art."

Locust Grove
"The main house at Locust Grove is a villa in the Italianate style designed in 1850 for the artist and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse by architect Alexander Jackson Davis."