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 Most exhibitions in: |
| Country |
№ |
| USA | 22 |
| Germany | 2 |
| Canada | 1 |
| Italy | 1 |
| Netherlands | 1 |
| Most exhibitions held at: |
| Institution |
№ |
| |
The Corcoran Gallery of Art, USA |
3 |
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MFAH - Museum of Fine Arts Houston, USA |
3 |
| |
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, USA |
2 |
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Seattle Art Museum, USA |
2 |
Biography: 
4.5.1826 Born in Hartford, CT (US)
Frederic Edwin Church was born the only son of a wealthy businessman. Although his father hoped he would become a physician or enter the world of business, Church persisted in his early desire to be a painter. In 1842-1843 he studied in Hartford with Alexander H. Emmons (1816-1879), a local landscape and portrait painter, and Benjamin H. Coe (1799-after 1883), a well-known drawing instructor. In 1844 Church's father, at last resigned to his son's choice of a career, arranged through his friend, the art patron Daniel Wadsworth, two years of study with Thomas Cole. Church was thus the first pupil accepted by America's leading landscape painter, a distinction that immediately gave him an advantage over other aspiring painters of his generation. From the first, Church showed a remarkable talent for drawing and a strong inclination to paint in a crisp, tightly focused style. In 1845 he made his debut at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design in New York, where he would continue to show throughout his career. Two years later four of his paintings were shown at the American Art-Union, and by that point he was established in New York as one of the most promising younger painters. In 1849, at the age of twenty-three, he was elected to full membership in the National Academy, the youngest person ever so honored.
During the late 1840s and early 1850s Church experimented with a variety of subjects, ranging from recognizable views of American scenery, to highly charged scenes of natural drama, to imaginary creations based on biblical and literary sources and much indebted to Cole. Gradually, however, he began to specialize in ambitious works that combined carefully studied details from nature in idealized compositions that had a grandeur and seriousness beyond the usual efforts of his contemporaries. Church traveled widely in search of subjects, first throughout the northern United States and then, in 1853, to South America. Inspired by the writings of the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, he spent five months in Colombia and Ecuador. His first full-scale masterpiece, The Andes of Ecuador (1855; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem), was a four-by-six-foot canvas depicting a vast tropical mountain panorama that astounded viewers with its combination of precise foreground detail and sweeping space. Two years later Church's reputation as America's most prominent landscape painter was secured with the exhibition in New York, London and other cities of Niagara (1857; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington) in New York. A second trip to South America took place that same year and resulted two years later in his most famous painting of the tropics, Heart of the Andes (1859; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
During the 1860s Church was at the height of his powers and created a remarkable series of large landscapes. He continued to travel, with important works resulting from a trip to Jamaica in 1865 and a visit to Europe and the Near East in 1867-1868. However, by the early 1870s his reputation was in decline, with American critics and patrons increasingly faulting his detailed and grand style as out of touch with the times. Church more and more devoted his time and energy to his family and to the construction and furnishing of Olana, his palatial home set high on a hill overlooking the Hudson. After 1880 he painted relatively few important works, although he continued into the 1890s to produce wonderfully fresh oil sketches of the view from Olana in changing conditions of light and weather. When he died in New York City on April 7, 1900, he was largely forgotten, and interest in his work only revived in the 1960s. He is now once again generally considered one of the most important proponents of landscape painting in mid-nineteenth century America.[This is an edited version of the artist's biography published, or to be published, in the NGA Systematic Catalogue]
7.4.1900 Died in New York City, NY (US)
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Public exhibitions 27
until 17.1.2010
Solo shows 8
2009
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| Painting the Cosmos: Science and the Art of Frederic Edwin Church - MFAH - Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX |
2008
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| Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes - Adelson Galleries, Inc., New York City, NY |
2007
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| Treasures from Olana: Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church - Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ |
2005
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| Treasures from Olana: Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church - MFAH - Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX |
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| The American Landscape - Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA |
1979
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| Close Observations: Selected Oil Sketches by Frederic E. Church - The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
1966
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| Frederic Edwin Church - Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC |
1860
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| Heart of the Andes by Frederick Edwin Church - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA |
Group shows 18
2009
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| Darwin - Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main |
2008
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| The American Evolution - A History through Art - The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape - Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA |
2007
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| Neue Welt - Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart |
2006
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| Tourism and the American Landscape - Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City, NY |
|
| Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art - MFAH - Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX |
2005
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| The Small Format Landscape - Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA |
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| Encouraging American Genius - The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| The American Landscape's "Quieter Spirit" - Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA |
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| Site Seeing - Photographic Excursions in Tourism - Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL |
2004
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| Masterpieces of American Art 1770-1920 from the Detroit Institute of Arts - Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI |
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| A Century of Collecting - Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY |
 |
| American Masters from Bingham to Eakins: The John Wilmerding Collection - The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
2003
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| Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art - Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA |
2002
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| Fire & Ice - Treasures from the photographic collection of Frederic Church - Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam |
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| An American Collection - Paintings from the National Academy of Design - Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL |
2000
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| Beautiful Landscapes - The Speed Presents Two Early American Landscape - Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY |
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| Cosmos - From Goya to De Chirico from Friedrich to Kiefer - Palazzo Grassi - Francois Pinault Foundation, Venice |
Public collections 26
Puerto Rico
| | Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce
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Spain
| | Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
|
USA
| | Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
|
| | Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
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| | Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
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| | Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
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| | The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
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| | Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX
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| | The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
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| | MFAH - Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
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| | Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
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| | Los Angeles County Museum of Art - LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
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| | Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT
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| | Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
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| | Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT
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| | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY
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| | National Academy Museum, New York City, NY
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| | Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA
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| | The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY
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| | Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO
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| | The de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
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| | Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
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| | Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
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| | Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
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| | Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY
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| | Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
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Catalogs
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.jpg "Contemporary Istanbul")
