May 17, 2005
Hudson River show opens at N-Y Historical Society
 Today marks the public opening of New-York Historical Society's "The Hudson River School at the New-York Historical Society: Nature and the American Vision," a show that traces the 19th century emergence of the distinctly American landscape.
More than 100 paintings from the museum's permanent collection are displayed, including works from Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, John F. Kensett and William Guy Wall. The collection also chronicles "the rise of the tourism industry," Linda Ferber, the show's curator, said in an interview at the show's Monday preview.
From one of the show's display signs:
The Hudson River Valley and the surrounding region figured prominently in the literary and poetic imagination of the young nation. The combination of the historic, picturesque and literary association established the river itself as a tourist destination and an icon of the Hudson River Society, with its varied scenery, weather and effects of light. Among the works on display is Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire" series, which imagines the life and death of a city in five scenes. It begins as a pastoral, graduates to a "rude village by the bay," and peaks as a "great city girding the bay," wherein a red-cloaked conqueror was thought to represent "the economic failure that grew out of the policies of Andrew Jackson." The fourth panel, a "tempest," shows the city burning, and it concludes with the city's return to nature under "a sunset ... the city a desolate ruin."
Also worth a close look are two oversized reproductions of maps of the Hudson River - extending from Brooklyn up toward Albany. An 1847 version looks a bit like an antique "Manhattan Unfurled," with hand-drawings of buildings, major landmarks, trees and boats.
The Hudson River collection runs through February 5, when it will be replaced by original Audubon watercolors for six weeks. The N-YHS considers Hudson River School and Audubon watercolor collections as the jewels of its permanent collection. The 433 light-sensitive Audubon watercolors will be displayed in batches, so that once shown, a painting won't go on display again for another 10 years. For three years, the museum will alternate works from the Hudson River School and the watercolors.
In addition to the rotating collections, the museum is working on a two-part, two-year blockbuster exhibit on slavery in New York. The first part, set to open in October, will focus on slavery from the mid-1600s to 1827.
May 17, 2005 12:47 PM in Museums, Upper West Side
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