Who is Thomas Cole?

Thomas Cole in 1846AD.

Many of those reading this blog may have heard of a fellow named Thomas Cole.  Certainly, with such a splendid name, this painter of the Hudson River School should be much better known.


The Oxbow, 1836, at the Met.

Thomas Cole was born in England in 1801, and came to the United States with his family in 1818.  The first settled in Steubenville, Ohio, where young Cole first learned the rudiments of painting.  By the mid 1820s, he would be in New York and would settle on the landscape as his primary artistic focus.


Home in the Woods, 1847, at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem.

Cole ended up living and maintaining a studio at Cedar Grover in Catskill, NY, which is the site of the modern Thomas Cole National Historic Site.  Thomas Cole was married and had five children.  He would die in 1848AD.


A view of Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning, ca. 1844, Brooklyn Museum.

One of the peaks of the Catskill Mountains would be named for Thomas Cole: http://www.catskill-3500-club.org/catskill-peaks/thomas-cole.htm

For more on this notable 19th-century American painter, you might note these sites:
Cedar Grove Official Website

NPS Thomas Cole NHS Website

"Explore Thomas Cole" Website

Thomas Cole at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Works of Thomas Cole at the National Gallery in Washington, DC

Live well!