Column & Stripe

The Asian Art Society

The Contemporary Art Society

The Friends of African and African American Art

The Friends of Photography

The Musart Society

The Textile Art Alliance

Africa & Byzantium

Monet in Focus

Carpets and Canopies in Mughal India

Conservation Images

From Dreaming to Hiking: Korean Landscape Paintings

Jewish Artists

Black American Artists

Female Artists

LGBTQ+ Artists after 1900

Asian American Artists

Made under Age 30

Recent Acquisitions

Has "Did You Know?"

Liturgical Textiles from Late Medieval Germany

On Loan

Six Dynasties of Chinese Painting

To the River’s South in Japanese Painting

Ancient Andean Textiles

Outdoor Sculptures

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Gifts

Gifts of the Painting and Drawing Society

Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900)

Frederic Edwin Church

In his New York studio, Church painted this spectacular view of a blazing sunset over wilderness near Mount Katahdin in Maine, which he had sketched during a visit nearly two years earlier. Although Church often extolled the grandeur of American landscape in his work, this painting appears to have additional overtones. Created on the eve of the Civil War, the painting's subject can be interpreted as symbolically evoking the coming conflagration. Church's considerable technical skills and clever showmanship contributed to his fame as the premier artist of his generation. Rather than debut this painting in an annual exhibition with works by other artists as was the custom, Church instead exhibited it by itself at a prestigious art gallery. Coaxed by advance publicity and highly favorable press reviews, several hundred spectators flocked to admire it during its seven-week run.

Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965).

Year in Review: 1965

Frederic Edwin Church. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (organizer) (co-organizer) (February 2-March 13, 1966); Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY (March 30-April 30, 1966); M. Knoedler & Co., Inc. (June 1-30, 1966).

Art of the United States: 1670-1966. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (organizer) (September 28-November 27, 1966).

Art of the United States: 1670-1966

Wilderness. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (co-organizer) (October 9-November 14, 1971).

Wilderness

Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776 - 1976. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (organizer) (March 7-April 11, 1976); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (May 2-June 13, 1976); The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (July 4-August 15, 1976); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (September 8-October 10, 1976).

Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776 - 1976

American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (co-organizer) (February 10-June 15, 1980).

American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875

Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).

Visions of Landscape: East and West

A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760 - 1910. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (organizer) (co-organizer) (September 7-November 13, 1983); Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (December 7, 1983-February 12, 1984).

A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760 - 1910

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (co-organizer) (October 4, 1987-January 3, 1988).

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

Bilder Aus des Neuen Welt: Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Paintings from the New World: American Paintings from the 18th and the 19th Century). Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany (November 17, 1988-February 12, 1989); Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (organizer) (November 17, 1988-February 12, 1989); Kunsthaus Zürich, CH-8024 Zürich, Switzerland (March 3-May 15, 1989).

Bilder Aus des Neuen Welt: Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Paintings from the New World: American Paintings from the 18th and the 19th Century)

Frederic Edwin Church. National Gallery of Art (co-organizer) (October 8, 1989-January 28, 1990).

Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991).

Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum

America. The New World in 19th-century Painting
America. Die Neue Welt in Bildern des 19. Jahrhunderts. Belvedere, Wien, Austria (organizer) (March 17-June 20, 1999).

America. The New World in 19th-century Painting
America. Die Neue Welt in Bildern des 19. Jahrhunderts

The American Sublime. Tate Britain, London (organizer) (February 20-May 19, 2002); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Museum of American Art, Philadelphia, PA (June 17-August 25, 2002); Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (September 22-November 17, 2002).

The American Sublime

CMA Highlights. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 21-September 11, 2005).

CMA Highlights

Maine Sublime. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2014-January 25, 2015).

Maine Sublime

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Academy of Design, The New York Centennial Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Selected from the Private Art Galleries, (1876), no. 125, listed as being part of J. T. Johnston's collection.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paintings by Frederic E. Church, N. A., (28 May to 15 October1900), illustrated in catalogue as plate 6.

Baltimore, The Municipal Art Society of Baltimore, Art Loan Exhibition, (1902), no. 89, listed as the property of Miss Garrett.

Washington, D. C., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Frederic Edwin Church, (12 February to 13 March 1966), no. 44; E18/ C56 W319. Exhibition traveled to the Albany Institute of History and Art (30 March through 30 April 1966), and, without Twilight in the Wilderness, to M. Knoedler and Company, New York (1 June through 30 June 1966).

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Art of the United States: 1670-1966, (28 September to 27 November, 1966), no. 48, brief comments about the color in Twilight in the Wilderness by Lloyd Goodrich, p. 25, catalogue.

Washington, D. C., The National Endowment for the Arts with the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Wilderness, (9 October to 14 November 1971), no. 69.

Buffalo, New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776-1976, (6 March to 11 April 1976), no. 10. Exhibition traveled to the Detroit Institute of Arts (5 May through 13 June 1976), The Toledo Museum of Art (4 July through 15 August 1976), and the Cleveland Museum of Art, (8 September through 10 October 1976).

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art, American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875, (10 February through 15 June 1980), no. 204; includes the following remarks: in "Design and Measurement in Luminist Art", Lisa Andrus discusses the composition of and quality of light in Twilight in the Wilderness, p.36; Earl A. Powell's "Luminism and the American Sublime" describes Church's use of cadmium colors to achieve brilliant light in many of his paintings, including Twilight in the Wilderness; and Twilight's role in the development of the 19th century ideal of the sublime, p. 92; "Church and Luminism: Light for America's Elect" by David C. Huntington describes how Church's technique in Twilight in the Wilderness erases all evidence of the artist's touch, p. 170, illus. 167.

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760- 1910, (7 September through 13 November 1983), no. 39.

Also traveled to The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. (7 December 1983- 12 February 1984) and, without Twilight in the Wilderness, to Grand Palais, Paris (16 March- 11 June 1984).

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, (4 October 1987 through 3 January 1988), pp.45, 251-4.

Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie, Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, Bilder Aus des Neuen Welt: Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, (22 November 1988 through 5 February 1989), no. 15. Exhibition traveled to Kunsthaus Zurich, (3 March - 15 May 1989).

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art, Frederic Edwin Church, (8 October 1989 to 28 January 1990), no. 34, catalogue text by Franklin Kelly, pp. 58-59, 61-62, illus. p. 110, cat. 34.

Vienna, Osterreichischen Galerie Belvedere, America: Die Neue Welt in Bildern des 19 Jahrunderts, (17 March through 20 June 1999), no. 45.

London, The Tate Britain, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880, (21 February - 19 May 2002), no. 25; pp. 129-131, p. 55-6, illus. p. 115, 131; Exhibition traveled to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (17 June -25 August 2002) and Minneapolis Institute of Art (22 September- 17 November 2002).

The Cleveland Museum of Art (06/21/2005 - 09/11/2005); "CMA Highlights"

New York, Avery's Gallery, (1866). Also shown at Dusseldorf Gallery, New York, 1866. Both exhibitions held in connection with auction, according to The Round Table, 10 March 1866. (See reference above.)

New Haven, Connecticut, Yale College, Second Annual Exhibition of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, Founded as a Department of Yale College by the Late Augustus Russell Street of New Haven, Conn., (1870), no. 114, listed as the property of John T. Johnston.

An oil painting of a vivid sunset over a dark wilderness landscape. The clouds in the sky are painted with warm shades of reds and oranges. Dark mountains are silhouetted against a sliver of bright yellow sky and the lake below them is reflecting the glow of the reds and oranges of the clouds.

William T. Walters [1820-1894], Baltimore, MD, consigned to Samuel Putnam Avery for sale at Henry H. Leeds and Co.

(Henry H. Leeds and Co., New York, NY, Feb. 12-13, 1864)

(Samuel Putnam Avery [1822-1904], New York, NY)

(Leeds and Minor at Old Dusseldorf Gallery, New York, NY, March 9, 1866, no. 174, sold to John Taylor Johnston)

John Taylor Johnston [1820-1893], New York, NY

(Chickering Hall, John Taylor Johnston sale, Dec. 19-22, 1876, sold to John Work Garrett?)

John Work Garrett [1820-1884], Baltimore, MD, by descent to his daughter, Mary E. Garrett?

Mary E. Garrett [1854-1909], Baltimore, MD, sold to Robert de Forest

Robert de Forest [1848-1931], Parkers Point, CT, by descent to his brother, Lockwood de Forest

Lockwood de Forest [1850–1932], Santa Barbara, CA, by descent to his son, Alfred Victor de Forest

Alfred Victor de Forest [1888-1945], Marlborough, NH, by descent to his son, Taber de Forest

Taber de Forest, Maine, sold to David McCoy

David McCoy, Lyme, CT, sold to Robert Weimann

Robert Weimann, Ansonia, CT, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

When Church finished a major painting, he showed it off in style. In June 1860, Twilight in the Wilderness was exhibited in its own room at the Goupil Gallery in New York, where excited visitors flocked to see Church's newest painting. One person even submitted a poem to a newspaper in New York about it!

Cycle of Life

This painting was completed in the lead up to the American Civil War, a period of deeply divided political sentiment in America. Some viewers of the painting believe it represents hope and heroism in the face of conflict; others believe it to be a prophetic warning. What do you think?

The Coming War

This landscape is probably compiled from several different sketches done at different times. Although some preparatory sketches were all created in the region of Mount Katahdin in Maine, there apparently is no one place a person could go to take in this particular view. It seems as if Church combined these sketches in his mind and then with his brush on canvas.

Compilation

How Does Church Depict Nature?

The Dramatic Sunset

Why Did Church Hold his Own Exhibitions?

Preserving America's Natural Beauty, Then and Now

Twilight in the Wilderness

The Painting and Drawing Society is for museum members who are interested in European and American old master and early modern paintings and drawings (before 1960). Our aim is to educate members, encourage collecting, and support the growth of the painting and drawing collections of the museum. The society offers lectures, educational programs, special tours of museum exhibitions, and trips to galleries, exhibitions, and private collections in other cities.Membership Benefits<ul><li>Learn through gallery talks, lectures, and tours on European and American paintings, drawings, and sculpture.</li><li>Travel to museums, special exhibitions, dealers, auction houses, and private collections in Cleveland, throughout the country, and abroad.</li><li>Enjoy programs, activities, and receptions with society members who share your interests in art.</li><li>Gain a deeper connection with the Cleveland Museum of Art and its collection and special exhibitions.</li></ul>Membership LevelsClick on a level below to join or renew.<ul><li><a href="https://ticketing.clevelandart.org/donate/i/60">$100 Junior Individual (under 40)</a></li><li><a href="https://ticketing.clevelandart.org/donate/i/59">$175 Junior Dual (both under 40)</a></li><li><a href="https://ticketing.clevelandart.org/donate/i/58">$175 Individual</a></li><li><a href="https://ticketing.clevelandart.org/donate/i/57">$300 Dual</a></li><li><a href="https://ticketing.clevelandart.org/donate/i/56">$350 Patron</a> (includes two annual guest passes for one event)</li><li><a href="https://ticketing.clevelandart.org/donate/i/55">$500 Collector</a> (includes four annual guest passes for up to two events)</li></ul>For more information about membership in the Painting and Drawing Society, call 216-707-6738 or email <a href="mailto:pds@clevelandart.org">pds@clevelandart.org</a>.