The Painted Sketch

American Impressions from Nature, 1830–1880

February 14–May 5, 1999

Thomas Cole

Study for Dream of Arcadia

1838
Oil on wood panel
New York Historical Society
New York, NY
Gift of the artist’s children, through John Durand

Landscape painting was of prime importance in America during the mid-nineteenth century, and artists such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, and Albert Bierstadt traveled to distant, often inaccessible places in search of new images. The hazards accompanying such ventures added to the public's interest in the on-the-spot sketches, which also became marketing tools for the carefully composed paintings that would later be created in a studio setting. The Painted Sketch is the first exhibition to focus on the sketches of major American artists of the period.