Thomas Cole Site Announces the 21st Annual Sunday Salons Speaker Series

Announcing the 2024 Sunday Salons, the 21st Annual Speaker Series Presented by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site  

Speakers Include the First Curator of Native American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rising Scholars from Princeton and the Cole Fellows Program, and RPI Architecture Reimagines the Museum Campus  

Catskill, New York – Monday, January 8 – The Thomas Cole National Historic Site announced today the 2024 Sunday Salon speakers for the 21st annual series. The Sunday Salons present engaging speakers on new ideas in American art once a month from January through April. The Salons takes place in the reconstructed 1846 New Studio building on the Thomas Cole Site campus in Catskill, New York. The Salons include a reception with drinks and light refreshments immediately following each talk. See the schedule for speakers and topics below.   

Sunday Salons are $10 for Members and $15 General Admission. Children 15 and under and all food stamp recipients receive free admission. Reservations are available at thomascole.org/events. Winter Tours are offered on the same days as the Sunday Salons at thomascole.org/tickets.  

SUNDAY, JANUARY 21 at 2 PM 

Thomas Cole's The Clove, Catskills: A "Native" Past for a Sustainable Future 

Michael Quituisaca, PhD Candidate at Princeton University and Cole Fellow Alumni 

Join Michael Quituisaca to discuss his graduate school research and how the Cole Fellowship prepared him for his academic career at Princeton University. Quituisaca is a Class of 2018 Cole Fellow Alumni and current PhD candidate at Princeton University in 19th and 20th century American art.  

Quituisaca received his master’s degree in Art History from American University in 2020, specializing in Thomas Cole. He received a B.A. in Art History from Marymount Manhattan College in 2017. He has worked as a fellow for the Alper Initiative for Washington Art at the American University Museum. He opened his first show as a co-curator in the summer of 2022 at the American University Museum titled Home-Land: Exploring the American Myth. 

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25 

At the Confluence of History and Myth: Truman Lowe’s Ethereal Elegance 

Patricia Marroquin Norby, PhD (Purépecha) 

February 25, 2pm 

Dr. Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha) will discuss the artist Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk), whose work will be exhibited at the Thomas Cole Site in 2024, and her work at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Patricia Marroquin Norby is the first curator of Native American art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, with a specialization in Native American art history and visual culture, as well as a MFA in printmaking and photography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her latest publication, Water, Bones, and Bombs—examining twentieth-century Southwest art production and environmental conflicts among Native, Hispano, and White communities in the northern Rio Grande Valley—is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 24 at 2 & 4 PM   

Imaginary Wilds: Architectural Interventions for the Thomas Cole National Historic Site  

A discussion on the pop-up exhibition at the Thomas Cole Site by the students and faculty of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture  

Curated by Adam Dayem, Assistant Professor, Rensselaer School of Architecture Principal, Actual Office Architecture PLLC

Join a group of RPI Architecture students for a studio-style presentation of their work exhibited in Imaginary Wilds: Architectural Interventions for the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. There will be two salons at 2 pm and 4 pm with a reception in between. The exhibition at the Thomas Cole Site presents architectural projects for the Thomas Cole National Historic Site by students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture at the museum.   

The exhibition presents architectural projects created for the Thomas Cole National Historic Site done by students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture. Under the guidance of six design studio instructors, students envisioned new buildings to house a gallery and public gathering space at the historic site's campus. Framed by the concept of a mythic wild landscape, which was prevalent in Cole’s time and persists in ours, Imaginary Wilds presents a series of forward-looking designs that address real and ideal relationships between architecture and landscape. The exhibition will be on view weekends in the New Studio building from March 9 to April 7. thomascole.org/imaginarywilds 

SUNDAY, APRIL 14 at 2 PM  

Class of 2024 Cole Fellow Research Presentations  

Catherine Augustyn, Michaela Ellison-DavidsonandRyan Munasinghe 

Join the Class of 2024 Cole Fellows Catherine Augustyn, Michaela Ellison-Davidsonand Ryan Munasinghe for a discussion of their year-long research projects at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. The Cole Fellowship is a research and professional development yearlong residency at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site for recent college graduates. The program launches the next generation of leaders in the field.   

Research topics include a day in the life of the many people who called this historic property home; a focus on the Bartow sisters, including the woman who took ownership of the property during Thomas Cole’s tenure; and the history of labor here.  

The 2024 Sunday Salons are made possible by The Estate of James T Lewis IV and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.