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HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL

Collection Info
HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL

The Hudson River School of American painting is one of the richest areas of the permanent collection. Paintings by many of the movement’s leading artists, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Church, Jasper Cropsey, and Sanford Robinson Gifford, can be seen in a special, intimate suite of galleries at the Art Center featuring their views of the American Northeast and Europe. At the heart of the permanent collection, most of these paintings are small oils and oil sketches, many of them purchased by an early Vassar College trustee, Dr. Elias Lyman Magoon. A collector of British antiquarian watercolors and prints, Magoon began collecting American art in the mid-1850s while living in New York City. He sold his collection to Matthew Vassar in 1864 to help found the college’s permanent collection. In his searches as a private collector, Magoon sought smaller Hudson River School works so as to stretch his budget, and his purchases are installed in the galleries among several later generous gifts and purchases. A Baptist minister who saw these paintings as expressive of God’s creative power, Magoon gravitated toward the ideal of romantic, color-tinged landscapes brushed with seasonal tints and drama, fitting for these painters’ predilection for the picturesque and luminescent. Drawings are also a strength of the Art Center’s Hudson River School collection, and sheets are exhibited in the galleries on a rotating basis.

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Autumn Eve at Vallombrosa
Thomas Cole
c. 1831
Medieval Buildings, Sicily
Thomas Cole
c. 1842
Voyage of Life: Youth
James Smillie
Nd
Autumn in North America
Frederic Edwin Church
c. 1856
Summer in South America
Frederic Edwin Church
c. 1853
Through the Woods
Asher Brown Durand
1856
Berkeley Rock, Newport
John Frederick Kensett
1856
Morning on the Coast of Sicily
Jasper Francis Cropsey
1855
Evening at Paestum
Jasper Francis Cropsey
1856
Artist Sketching on Greenwood Lake
Jasper Francis Cropsey
1869
Ripley Falls
Benjamin Champney
1858
Sketchbook: Marbletown, Catskills, Lake George
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1847-1848
Lago Maggiore
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1854
The Roman Campagna
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1859
Sunrise on the Bernese Alps
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1858
Sketch of Gebel Haridi, on the Nile
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1869
Tappan Zee
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1880
Seascape
Sanford Robinson Gifford
Nd
Paint box
Sanford Robinson Gifford
1867
Coming Snow
Jervis McEntee
Nd
Noon in Midsummer
Jervis McEntee
Nd
Clouds
Jervis McEntee
1870
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