NEWS
Announcing the 2023 Sunday Salon Speakers and Winter Sunday Tours
This Year Marks the 20th Year of the Signature Speaker Series hosted by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site 2004-2023
Catskill, NY – December 12, 2022 – The Thomas Cole National Historic Site announced today the 2023 Sunday Salon speakers on new ideas in American art and the accompanying Sunday Tours. This year marks the 20th year of the signature series. The 2023 season features leading voices across the field of American art, including curators, historians, and the next generation of innovators. The Salons present engaging speakers once a month from January through April on Sundays at 2 pm in the New Studio building at the historic site in Catskill, New York. Sunday Tours are offered before and after each Salon at 1 pm and 3:30 pm for visitors to experience the historic home and studio of the American artist and environmentalist, Thomas Cole (1801-1848). In March, in honor of Women’s History Month, a special 12 pm Tour will also be offered, featuring the women that lived, labored, and made art here on the historic property. The tours include digital storytelling installations throughout the historic home, including wrap-around visual projections, immersive audio spots, and private letters that appear on desktops.
Sunday Salon tickets are $10 for members and $15 general admission and available at thomascole.org/events. Sunday Tours are $18 and available at thomascole.org/tickets. Memberships are available at thomascole.org/memberships. Advance registration is encouraged for the Sunday Salons and advance registration is required for the Sunday Tours.
Toward Radical Care and Rigorous Joy:
The Future of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum
Stephanie Sparling Williams
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum
Building on the Brooklyn Museum’s mid-19th century founding ethos of “art for social improvement,” Dr. Stephanie Sparling Williams charts a new vision for American art and its display at the institution. Expanding the conversations about diverse representation and desires for collections to “tell more stories,” Sparling Williams discusses the power and potential in the organization and experience of the art itself.
It is Wild and Untamed – Descriptions of the Land and the Original Stewards
Heather Breugl
Public Historian, Activist, and Decolonial Education Consultant
Words that have been used to describe the land—wild, untamed, savage—have also been used to describe the land's original inhabitants. Hear the perspective of this accomplished decolonial scholar about the use of these stereotypes of Indigenous peoples.
Exhibiting American Women Artists at The Baltimore Museum of Art
Virginia Anderson
Curator of American Art and Department Head of American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Baltimore Museum of Art
Dr. Virginia Anderson will share recent and upcoming collection installations at The Baltimore Museum of Art that feature women artists, whose work ranges from the Hudson River School era to the mid-twentieth century. The presentation will highlight well-known collection favorites, works by understudied artists, and new acquisitions.
Class of 2023 Cole Fellows’ Research Presentations
Vicente Cayuela, Sofia Thieu D’Amico, Kristen Marchetti & Beth Wynne
As the culmination of their year-long Cole Fellowship, Vicente Cayuela, Sofia Thieu D’Amico, Kristen Marchetti, and Beth Wynne will present their new research findings. Their research explores Indigenous land use and 19th-century industry in the Hudson Valley, previously unacknowledged labor on the historic property, post emancipation histories, the artistic achievements of Sarah Cole, the life and work of Maria Bartow Cole, and the systems of labor, commerce, trade, and agriculture that supported the development of the 1815 Main House.
The 2023 Sunday Salons are made possible by The Estate of James T Lewis IV
Additional support provided by Empire State Development’s I LOVE NEW YORK program under the Market NY initiative, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and the Kindred Spirits Society of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site
Thomas Cole National Historic Site
The Thomas Cole National Historic Site is an international destination presenting the
original home and studios of the artist and early environmentalist Thomas Cole (1801-
1848). Cole founded the early major art movement of the United States, now known as the Hudson River School of landscape painting. Located on 6 acres in the Hudson Valley, the site includes the 1815 Main House; Cole’s 1839 Old Studio; the reconstructed 1846 New Studio building; and panoramic views of the Catskill Mountains. It is a National Historic Landmark and an affiliated area of the National Park System. The Thomas Cole Site’s activities include guided and self-guided tours, special exhibitions of both 19th-century and contemporary art, print publications, lectures, extensive online programs, school programs, the Cole Fellowship, free community events, and innovative public programs such as the Hudson River School Art Trail—a map and website that enable people to visit the places in nature that Cole painted—and the Hudson River Skywalk, a new scenic walkway connecting the Thomas Cole Site with Frederic Church’s Olana over the Hudson River. The goal of all programs at the Thomas Cole Site is to enable visitors to find meaning and inspiration in the full historic context of Thomas Cole’s art and ideas. The themes that Cole explored in his art and writings—such as landscape preservation—are both historic and timely, providing the opportunity to connect to audiences with insights that are highly relevant to their own lives.