Fire and Ice: Treasures from the Photographic Collection of Frederic Church at Olana

Fels, Thomas Weston; Dahesh Museum of Art

ISBN 10: 0801440815 / ISBN 13: 9780801440816

Published by Cornell Univ Pr, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A., 2002

About this Item

First Edition. NF/NF. Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt titles, DJ, 79 pp, 62 color and b&w plates, square octavo, slight edgewear, else a clean and crisp copy.

Seller Inventory # 107933

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Fire and Ice: Treasures from the Photographic Collection of Frederic Church at Olana
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801440815
• ISBN 13: 9780801440816
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Photography

About this title

Synopsis

Frederic Church (1826–1900), who gained international renown for paintings such as Niagara (1857), Heart of the Andes (1859), Twilight in the Wilderness (1860), and The Icebergs (1861), was inspired by his extensive travel and study. His work was also informed by his appreciation of a new visual medium. Fire & Ice, a selection from the several thousand photographs and daguerreotypes Church collected at Olana, his Orientalist home on the Hudson River, provides insight into the interests and taste of one of nineteenth-century America's greatest painters.

Church was a boy of thirteen when the invention of photography was announced to the world. As a painter, he was of the first generation to grow up with photographs and consider them a useful adjunct to his work. Church collected photographs and daguerreotypes by early pioneers of the art, including Désiré Charnay, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins. His collection appears to have served largely as a source of inspiration and armchair travel, reminding him of favorite locations and details of architecture, culture, and landscape.

In Fire & Ice, images from Church's collection are shown along with a selection of his own oil sketches, drawings, and archival materials. Some of the photographs are devoted to the varied geographical interests reflected in Church's art and travels: Central and South America, the Middle East, and the polar North. Others served as visual reference for the design and construction of Olana. Lavishly illustrated, Fire & Ice shows how the photographs in Church's collection echoed the principal stages of the painter's career.

About the Author

Thomas Weston Fels is an independent curator and writer and Curator of the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum, Manchester, Vermont. Among his many exhibitions and publications is O Say Can You See: American Photographs, 1839–1939. Kevin Avery has retired as Associate Curator of American Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.