Thomas Cole
English/American, 1801 - 1848
Death-PlaceCatskill, NY
Birth-PlaceBolton, England
BiographyThomas Cole, best known as the founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting, was born in Bolton-le-Moor, Lancashire, England, the son of a textile manufacturer. He completed his formal education in 1815 and began an apprenticeship to an engraver of designs for printed calico; two years later, he was hired as an engraver's assistant. In 1818, financial difficulties related to labor uprisings led the Cole family to immigrate to Philadelphia, where Thomas found work as an engraver's assistant. Later, Cole joined his family at their new residence in Steubenville, Ohio, where he taught painting and drawing at a seminary for young women run by his older sisters.It is thought that John Stein, an itinerant portrait painter, introduced the fundamental technique of oil painting to Cole. In 1821 Cole began painting portraits of Steubenville residents and soon was traveling himself. It was not long before he returned to Philadelphia with the intention of becoming a professional artist. He drew from casts at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he was impressed by landscapes by Philadelphia artists Thomas Doughty and Thomas Birch.
In the meantime, the Coles had moved to New York City. Thomas followed in 1825 and sold three paintings to George Bruen, a New York merchant who then financed the artist's first trip up the Hudson River. Cole's career was launched with the sale of three pictures resulting from this trip-to John Trumbull, William Dunlap, and Asher B. Durand, all active members of the New York art community. Through Trumbull in particular, Cole gained some of his first and most important early patrons, including Daniel Wadsworth of Hartford and Robert Gilmor of Baltimore. Cole continued to take sketching trips up the Hudson to the Catskill area-the first and most influential artist to do so-and, inspired by Wadsworth, began to travel to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He also sketched in the Adirondacks, the Berkshires, Maine, and Connecticut. These trips provided material for paintings composed in his studio.
Cole's early career centered around the wilderness landscape of North America, and it is on these canvases that he built his reputation. His elevation of American landscape painting from a primarily descriptive genre to a symbolic one was the impetus for his quick success. In his writings and sketchbooks, however, it is clear that his goal was to make history paintings. Luman Reed, a New York merchant, commissioned Cole's first major series in this vein, The Course of Empire (1834-36; New-York Historical Society). Generally misunderstood in its day, the series is now considered to be a comment on the administration of Andrew Jackson. Samuel Ward, also of New York, commissioned Cole's second major series, The Voyage of Life (1839-40; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica N.Y.), four allegorical paintings exploring the stages of life and Christian salvation. The Cross and the World (ca. 1846-47; whereabouts unknown), Cole's final unfinished series, was inspired by John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and continued the artist's investigation of religious themes.
Cole traveled in Europe from 1829 to 1832 and from 1841 to 1842, after which he added European and arcadian views to his repertoire, inspired by the art and landscapes he saw abroad. During his first stay in London, from 1829 to 1831, he met J. M. W. Turner and John Constable and exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy. In 1832 he sailed for Paris, where he remained for one week before leaving for Italy. He spent time in Naples, Florence, Volterra, and Rome, where he stayed in the studio said to have belonged to Claude Lorrain. On his second trip to Europe, he again visited England, France, and Italy and toured Switzerland as well.
Cole took on two students during his career, Frederic Church, who achieved fame equal to his own, and Benjamin McConkey. Church studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846, and his early work bears the mark of Cole's tutelage, particularly in its subject matter.
Cole was a prolific poet, essayist, and diarist and lectured frequently. One of his most important lectures was "Essay on American Scenery," delivered to the American Lyceum Society in New York in 1835 and published in the American Monthly Magazine the following year. He died in Catskill, New He died in Catskill, New York.
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