PAST EVENTS & EXHIBITIONS

175th Wedding Anniversary

November 19, 2011  6-9 pm

Everyone is Invited to be a Wedding Guest for One Historic Night.
Free Admission

This year is the 175th anniversary of the wedding of Thomas and Maria Cole! Celebrate this triple-platinum anniversary in the Main House where the wedding took place. At 6:30pm, the preacher who married the Coles will conduct the ceremony and narrate the scene with two other actors, weaving quotes from actual love letters and first-hand accounts of the 1836 event with some improvisation and audience participation. Wedding-themed dress-up clothes will be provided and guests can be photographed for a souvenir of the historic occasion. At the reception, enjoy wedding cake and locally brewed beer from the award-winning Crossroads Brewery. Bring your own top hat or other flourish if the spirit moves you!

The Dress
On display for one night only will be Maria Cole’s original white silk 1836 wedding dress, on temporary loan from the Greene County Historical Society.

The Cake
After the ceremony, guests will be treated to a wedding reception complete with a 3-tiered wedding cake from an 1833 recipe in The American Frugal Housewife, Mrs. Child, Boston:

"Good common wedding cake may be made thus: Four pounds of flour, three pounds of butter, three pounds of sugar, four pounds of currants, two pounds of raisins, twenty-four eggs, half a pint of brandy, or lemon-brandy, one ounce of mace, and three nutmegs. A little molasses makes it dark colored, which is desirable. Half a pound of citron improves it; but it is not necessary. To be baked two hours and a half, or three hours. After the oven is cleared, it is well to shut the door for eight or ten minutes, to let the violence of the heat subside, before cake or bread is put in. To make icing for your wedding cake, beat the whites of eggs to an entire froth, and to each egg add five teaspoonfuls of sifted loaf sugar, gradually; beat it a great while. Put it on when your cake is hot, or cold, as is most convenient. It will dry in a warm room, as short distance from a gentle fire, or in a warm oven."

Reservations are not required, but are appreciated. Please call 518-943-7465 extension 7 and leave your name, phone number, and the number of people in your party. Admission is free.

Many thanks to our sponsors: Crossroads Brewery for beer and promotion; Debbie Klein for graphic design; Q. Cassetti for poster artwork; John Oles for music; Hudson Talbott for Rudie Berkhout lasers; Sheri DeJan for wedding cake.

Exhibition: Robert S. DuncansonRobert S. Duncanson, Landscape, 1851. Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN

The First African-American Landscape Painter to Gain International Renown

On May 1, 2011, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site opened Robert S. Duncanson: The Spiritual Striving of the Freedmen’s Sons, the first exhibition featuring the work of the nineteenth-century African-American landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson in many years, and the first exhibition of his work to appear on the east coast, even in his lifetime. The exhibition brings the work of this ground-breaking artist to the home of Thomas Cole, who was a major influence on Duncanson. The exhibition is curated by Joseph D. Ketner, the Henry and Lois Foster Chair in Contemporary Art and the Distinguished Curator-in-Residence at Emerson College in Boston. He is the author of the definitive book about the artist, The Emergence of the African- American Artist: Robert S. Duncanson 1821-1872. The catalogue for this exhibition contains an essay by Mr. Ketner including new information on the artist and color illustrations of many new paintings discovered over the past fifteen years. The exhibition runs through October 30, 2011.

Supported by The Bank of Greene County and The Greene County Legislature through the County Initiative Program administered by the Greene County Council on the Arts.

Annual October Lecture Event

by Franklin Kelly, Curator at the National Gallery of Art
Sunday October 23, 2 pm

Join us for the sixth annual Raymond Beecher Memorial Lecture, this year presenting Franklin Kelly, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and a professor in the department of art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Admission is $7 per person, or $5 for members, and is first-come-first-served. After the lecture, enjoy complementary admission to the 2011 exhibition, "Robert S. Duncanson: The Spiritual Striving of the Freedmen's Sons."

Supported by The New York Council for the Humanities and the Thomas Cole Benefactors. Many thanks to Temple Israel for the venue and parking for this event.

If you are in town for the weekend, see also the new installation of "Masters on Main Street," the storefront art project in Catskill, New York. New work is unveiled on Saturday October 22, 4-6 pm, followed by a dance party at BRIK Gallery, 473 Main Street, 6-9 pm. For more information visit http://www.greenearts.org/testpost.

Community Day - Free Admission

Sunday September 25, 1-4 pm

Everyone is invited to join the fun at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the site in 2001. The local musical star Mark Hatton will be playing dancing tunes on the banjo from 3 to 4pm, and free apple cider and cookies will be offered all afternoon. Thomas Cole’s 1815 home and 1839 studio will be open free of charge, and all visitors will receive a free walking guide to the 5-acre site as well as a free brochure with the history of the historic property. A special exhibition that illustrates the major milestones of the last decade will be on view, presenting archival materials, photographs, and audio visual displays. The newly restored stone wall and entrance gates will be ready for all to enjoy, as part of the overall landscape restoration that was just completed with over 200 new trees and shrubs all around the site. No reservations are neccessary -- all are welcome.

Remember the Ladies:
Women of the Hudson River School

Susie (Sarah) Barstow, Woodland Interior, 1865. Private collection

May 1-October 31, 2010

The Thomas Cole Historic Site has been presenting annual exhibitions of 19th-century landscape masterworks since 2004; however, the 2010 exhibition was the first to focus on women landscape artists of the Hudson River School. This exhibition included approximately 25 works of art (paintings, photography, drawing manuals) as well as paintings by Thomas Cole’s own sister Sarah Cole and daughter Emily Cole. The exhibition was co-curated by Nancy Siegel, Associate Professor, Towson University, and Jennifer Krieger, Managing Partner, Hawthorne Fine Art. It was accompanied by a printed exhibition catalogue with full-color illustrations and essays by the curators. The title is taken from a letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams in 1776: “I desire you would Remember the Ladies… if particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion.” Read more about the exhibition.

The exhibition is sponsored by Michael Altman Fine Art & Advisory Services, Hawthorne Fine Art New York, the Bank of Greene County, and the Greene County Legislature through the County Initiative Program administered by the Greene County Council on the Arts. Our sincere thanks to Temple Israel for offering us their facility for our lecture at no charge. The exhibition catalogue is supported by Furthermore Grants in Publishing, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, Sharon and Henry Martin, and Eric and Katherine Baumgartner.

5th Annual Raymond Beecher Memorial Lecture

October 10, 2010  2 pm

Outdoor Men: Manliness, Masculinity, and the Antebellum Landscape Painter
by Sarah Burns

From the 1830s on, landscape representation held pride of place in the realm of American painting, coming to the fore as a truly national art.  With this emerging genre came questions about the identity of the new American artist.  As one who hobnobbed in elite cultural circles but also worked with his hands and roughed it in the woods and mountains, was the antebellum American landscape painter to be a gentleman or an undomesticated wild man, a James Fenimore Cooper or a Davy Crockett, romantic dreamer or man of action?  Please join Dr. Sarah Burns, Ruth N. Halls Professor of Fine Arts at Indiana University, as she examines the ways in which Hudson River School painters attempted to reckon with the problematic aura of femininity that clung to the image of the artist at that time. Admission is $7 per person, or $5 for members, and is first-come-first-served. The event will be held in Temple Israel, which shares a parking lot with the Thomas Cole Historic Site.

Made possible with support from the New York Council for the Humanities. Our sincere thanks to Temple Israel for donating to us the use of their facility for this lecture.

A September Celebration

To unveil the plans for Thomas Cole's New Studio
Saturday September 11, 2010  6pm

Join us for a party at Thomas Cole's home in Catskill with cocktails on the lawn followed by dinner at one of several magnificent river-front homes nearby. At the event, the newly completed architectural drawings for Thomas Cole's "New Studio" will be unveiled. The building was designed by Cole and built in 1846, but was demolished in 1973. The original stone foundation has been unearthed, and this fascinating archaeological site will be on view as well. Tickets are $225 for the cocktail and dinner, or $70 for the cocktail party only.

Independence Party

The 7th annual summer party to benefit the Thomas Cole Historic Site

Sunday July 4, 2010  7pm

Join us for a glorious river party with cocktails, dinner, music, dancing and fireworks at a private estate featuring a 180-degree view of the Hudson River, celebrating the newly established INDEPENDENCE of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. Tickets are $150 or $125 for members. Sponsorships are available at the Silver level ($500) which includes two event tickets, Gold ($1000) which includes four tickets, and Platinum ($1500) which includes six tickets. Underwriter sponsors ($2500) receive reserved tables for ten people at the event.

Reserve your place using our online form.