Thomas Cole National Historic Site (2025)

28/02/2025

Us too, us too 🌱 from “Waiting for the return of the green world. Porch at Thomas Cole House.”

27/02/2025

Can you believe there’s only three more weeks until the First Day of Spring? 🌼 This week’s highlight is a tea set made by Emily Cole, who was known as “Catskill’s China Painter.” Emily lived her entire life at Cedar Grove, surrounded by beautiful flora and fauna like the English Yellow Roses she painted on this tea set. Soon, the Site will be covered in blooming flowers, just like the ones Emily saw and painted.

➡️ To see this piece in the bedroom of the Main House, sign up for a Guided Tour. Tours start on the hour from 11am to 3pm every Saturday and Sunday. Book your tickets at the link in bio or thomascole.org/tickets.

🖼️ Emily Cole, “Hand-painted Tea Pot, Cups and Saucers, Cream Pitcher, and Sugar Bowl,” ca. 1900, Painted porcelain, various sizes, , Gift of Edith Cole Silberstein

25/02/2025

Thanks to the generosity of wonderful people, you can now see two original 19th-century Cole paintings on the subject of columns by the artists (and brother and sister!) Thomas Cole and Sarah Cole. See Thomas Cole’s original painting, “Study of Fallen Columns,” 1844-1848, on loan from the Bob and Carol Lockyer Collection, and Sarah Cole’s original painting, “Ancient Column Near Syracuse,” c. 1848, gifted to the collection by Susan Clark Livingston. Sarah Cole (1805-1857) was a professional artist who exhibited her paintings at the National Academy of Design and was featured in the 19th-century publication “Women Artists in all Ages and Countries.”

Left: Sean Moulton, Cathy Lockyer Moulton, and curator Kate Menconeri with Thomas Cole’s “Study of Fallen Columns” / Right: Susan Clark Livingston and associate curator Amanda Malmstrom with Sara Cole’s “Ancient Column Near Syracuse,” c. 1848

20/02/2025

How did people read after dark before electricity? We’ve got a chair for that! Thomas Cole and his uncle-in-law, John A. Thomson, went on a shopping spree in 1836 and came back with a state-of-the-art reading spot. Design historian Jean C. Dunbar sets the scene:

“In October 1836, Thomas Cole headed to New York City, accompanied by John A. Thomson...the two men engaged in a frenzy of shopping.… At Browne & Ash, on the Bowery, Thomson ordered the very model of a modern chair, with smartly sinuous Grecian lines and innovative spring upholstery.…He ordered the chair equipped with a drop-arm book holder, to facilitate his voracious consumption of books, journals, newspapers, and scientific tracts. And Thomson chose to attach a light, useful at night—but welcome by day, for struggling with small print. His chair held an old-fashioned candle, widely believed to be softer and easier on the eyes than harsh modern lamplight. Today, John A. Thomson’s clever, patent reading chair brings its owner alive. At the same time, it memorializes a very special shopping trip, full of excitement and possibility, which presaged great changes at Cedar Grove. As Thomson chose this chair’s details and placed his order, Thomas Cole was standing by.”

➡️ Take a tour this Sunday at 1 and 3:30 pm to learn more about the historic interiors and décor on view, including John A. Thomson’s chair. Tickets are available at the link in bio or thomascole.org/tickets.

Brown & Ash, “John Alexander Thomson’s Chair,” early 19th century, red velvet upholstered wooden reading chair with wheels, 40 x 22 x 29 in., Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Gift of Arthur Hamm and . Photo by Vicente Cayuela

19/02/2025

📣 Announcing a new limited-time Neighbor Membership ✨

Are you a resident of Catskill? You’re eligible for a new Neighbor Membership discount with all the benefits.

Learn more at the link in bio or at thomascole.org/membership

☕️ P. S. All new and upgrading members from any zip code receive free coffee in the Cole Center for one whole year

12/02/2025

Gift an everlasting bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day 💐 Shop curated gifts online, including art prints, notecards, and books featuring the beautiful blooms of Emily Cole (1843–1913).

➡️ Shop at the link in bio or store.thomascole.org. Select local pickup at checkout to schedule a time to pick up your items before Friday!

12/02/2025

**Tickets going fast** Join AD100 designer Stephen Shadley and our new Executive Director Maura O’Shea on Sun, Feb 23 for a conversation to learn how Shadley integrated the new Cole Center building into the historic site and drew inspiration from Thomas Cole’s own architectural designs. Grab your tickets at the link in bio or Thomas Cole.org/events.

Enjoy sparkling sips from our event sponsor C. Cassis

is a renowned New York City-based interior and architectural designer and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. He is best known for creating homes for Hollywood stars including Jennifer Aniston and Diane Keaton.

Photo Peter Aaron/OTTO

11/02/2025

in 1848, Thomas Cole passed away at age 47, leaving the unfinished painting, “Landscape with Clouds,” on his easel.

Hear from Dr. Franklin Kelly, curator at the , on the importance of this work now on view at the :

“‘‘Landscape with Clouds’ is one of his most remarkable late creations, reductively minimal, yet powerful in effect. It is also something of an enigma, for nothing is known about its intended subject. A passage at the lower left, where Cole scratched in wet paint an angel and a child carrying a cross, suggests a religious theme, and it is possible that this was an early attempt at beginning his series ‘The Cross and the World.’”

🖼 Thomas Cole, “Landscape with Clouds,” 1846–47, oil on canvas, 48 x 72 in., Bob and Carol Lockyer Collection

07/02/2025

Calling all teachers! You can schedule a school program with our museum guides all year long. Our programs use American art to teach American history and other curriculum themes. Find out more at thomascole.org/schoolvisits

06/02/2025

Everyone loves a waterfall! But what is behind those transfixing cascades of water? Go deeper with the artist Jean-Marc Superville Sovak () as he explores depictions of Kaaterskill Falls from our :

“When I look at Thomas Cole’s ‘Falls at Cattskill,’ I feel like I am struck by a severe kind of nearsightedness. As my eye traces the outline of the entrance to the cave at the base of the falls into which Cole has placed the viewer looking outwards, I imagine myself backing away from the opening, feeling my way along the inside of this massive oculus-shaped cavity, by glasses clouded with the spray of the water hissing upon contact with the rocks as it relentlessly falls from its 260-foot drop.”

➡️ Read more from about this engraving of Kaaterskill Falls and its historic context and contemporary resonance in our collection book “Making Place: The Thomas Cole National Historic Site Collection.” Get your copy at the link in bio or at store.thomascole.org.

🖼 Fenner Sears & Co. after Thomas Cole, “The Falls of Cattskill, New York” (detail) 1831, engraving on paper, 6 x 4 in., Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Gift of Helen McCord. Photograph: Vicente Cayuela | Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, “a-Historical Landscape: Kaaterskill Falls/Sabbath Scene,” 2022, monoprint on found antique engraving, 10 x 8 in., Courtesy the artist

05/02/2025

This Sunday at 2 pm, join Class of 2025 Cole Fellow Frances Baker-Tucker for a custom tour to learn about the history of Black labor and legacy on the historic property. The Cole Center will be open from 1:45 pm–3 pm.

➡️ Grab your tickets at the link in bio or thomascole.org/tickets.

04/02/2025

Come work with us! The final deadline to apply for the 2025–2026 Cole Fellowship is this Friday, February 7.

Cole Fellows get to live and work at the and work closely with staff on original research and projects spanning historic and contemporary art exhibitions, collections, education and public programs, publications, and engaging audiences.

➡️ Learn more about how to apply at the link in bio or thomascole.org/fellowships.

04/02/2025

Executive Director Emerita Elizabeth B. Jacks was awarded a Individual Achievement Award of Distinction! The award announced today honors dedicated museum professionals who play a significant role in advancing their organizations. During her tenure, Betsy expanded the museum campus from one building to six, increased the number of staff from one to twenty-four, and grew the organization’s operating budget and visitation by tenfold. Major projects include restoring Cole’s 1839 Old Studio, reconstructing Cole’s 1846 New Studio, restoring the Main House interiors, creating award-winning audiovisual story-telling installations, organizing major traveling exhibitions, publishing over 30 books, mapping a hiking trail to the places that Cole painted, and opening the historic site’s new all-season visitor center building: the Cole Center.

From .jacks “Everything I achieved was because of my brilliant staff, so I’m dedicating this award to them. What an epic journey it has been!”

01/02/2025

Happy Birthday Thomas! On this day in 1801, Thomas Cole was born in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England. Lancashire, located in Northwest England, was a major industrial county in Thomas Cole’s time. Despite being industrial, it was surrounded by beautiful countryside, like the one shown in Sarah Cole’s painting Landscape with Church (1846) depicting the church where their parents got married. Shortly after Thomas Cole’s birth, Luddite revolts sparked across Lancashire, as depicted in Loutherbourg’s Coalbrookdale by Night (1801). These violent revolts and economic circumstances ultimately forced the Cole family to immigrate to America in 1818, when Thomas is only 17 years old. Because of Sarah Cole’s landscape, they always had a piece of home hanging on their wall.

This painting by Sarah Cole is currently on display at the Main House. Visit our website to learn how you can schedule an upcoming tour!

Sarah Cole, Landscape with Church, 1846, oil on board, 10 1/8 x 13 1/4 in, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, NY, Gift of Lynne Hill Bohnsack, TC. 1999.1

Phillipe Jacques de Loutherbourg, Coalbrookdale by Night, 1801, oil on canvas, 26 ¾ x 42 1/8 in, Science Museum, London, United Kingdom.

31/01/2025

📷 from

📍 in Greene County checks all the boxes

30/01/2025

Expanding the with this painting by Sarah Cole, gifted to the by Susan Clark Livingston. ✨ “Sarah Cole (1805–1857) was an accomplished Hudson River School painter and etcher who exhibited and sold her work nationally. In ‘Ancient Column Near Syracuse,’ the artist meditates on the ruins of classical architecture within a Sicilian landscape. Although she never traveled to Italy, Sarah was familiar with contemporary paintings of Italian scenery, including those of her brother Thomas Cole, with whom she shared a close relationship. Both Sarah and Thomas painted multiple scenes of Mt. Etna, the legendary Sicilian volcano. As noted by Dr. Nancy Siegel, this specific painting may have been inspired by Thomas Cole’s ‘Column of Ancient Syracuse,’ displayed at his memorial exhibition in 1848. Weathered by time, the central column speaks to the bygone presence of a past civilization, while the nearby growing tree, flora, and flute player evoke the ongoing cycles of life.” — Kristen Marchetti (), Cole Fellow at the , 2022–23, and Master of Arts Student at , 2023–25

See “Ancient Column Near Syracuse” on view now in the Main House! Check our tour schedule and buy tickets at the link in bio or thomascole.org/tickets.

🖼 Sarah Cole, “Ancient Column Near Syracuse,” c. 1848, oil on canvas, 11 7/8 x 11 7/8 in., Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Gift of Susan Clark Livingston

30/01/2025

We celebrate the life and mourn the passing of the visionary artist and curator, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. An enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Smith’s work made a profound and lasting impact on the history of art and our current moment. We were honored and grateful to present her work in our 2023 exhibition and publication, “Women Reframe American Landscape.”

📸 Smith’s work on view in the Main House Sitting Room in 2023, Photos © Peter Aaron/OTTO

30/01/2025

The final deadline for the Class of 2026 Cole Fellowship is approaching! Applications are due by Friday, February 7. We asked our 2025 Cole Fellows about their three favorite things about the fellowship program. Cole Fellow Elizabeth Vazquez says:

1. Learning through hands-on experience. As a Cole Fellow, I’ve been encouraged to follow my passions for collections and object research through unique curatorial projects.

2. Site visits. Cole Fellows get to explore all kinds of museums across the northeast, like Manitoga / the Russel Wright Design Center () pictured here.

3. My fellow Fellows. I’ve made friends for life through this program, and I learn from them every single day.

➡️ Learn more about how to apply at the link in bio or thomascole.org/fellowships.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site

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