Portland Museum of Art
Portland, Maine
1-207-775-6148 or 1-800-639-4067
In Search of the Promised Land: Paintings by Frederic Edwin Church
From January 18 through March 18, 2001, the Portland Museum of Art will present a retrospective exhibition of works by Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the most famous and distinguished American landscape painter of the 19th century, and the foremost member of the second generation of the Hudson River School. In Search of the Promised Land: Paintings by Frederic Edwin Church, organized by the Berry-Hill Gallery, New York, commemorates the centennial of the artist's death and the memorial Church exhibition held that year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In Search of the Promised Land comprises 44 paintings, most of them lent by museums and private
collectors. its features some of the artist's most memorable and monumental
canvases including Niagara Falls from the American Side (1867) from
the National Gallery of Scotland, and Morning in the Tropics from
the National Gallery of Art. In addition to the large public works, the
show covers a range of medium size and small, intimate but equally awe-inspiring
pictures, which he created either as studies for the major works or as personal
and highly skillful sketches.(left: Mount Katahdin from Millinocket
Camp, 1895, oiol on canvas, 26 1/2 x 42 1/4 inches, Portland Museum
of Art, Portland, Maine. Gift of Owen and Anna Wells in memory of Elizabeth
B. Noyce (1998.96). Photo by Melville McLean)
Known at first for his ravishing views of
domestic scenery, particularly of the Hudson Valley region, Church was a
visionary painter who explored far-off places from the Arctic North to the
South American tropics to the exotic Near East. His magnificent home and
studio overlooking the Hudson, which he called "Olana" - referring
to the Latin name of a "treasure-storehouse" in Persia near one
of the presumed sites of the earthly Paradise - is one of the architectural
wonders of its time and is a melange of the Oriental and Moorish styles
that he so admired. (left: The Iceberg, c. 1874, 22 x 27 inches,
oil on canvas, Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection,
1993.6, Photograph courtesy the Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago)
The exhibition tour includes Berry-Hill Galleries, New
York (April 25-July 15, 2000), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago (August
4-October 1, 2000), Portland Art Museum, Oregon (October 21, 
2000-January 31, 2001), and the Portland
Museum of Art (January 18-March 18, 2001).
The fully illustrated catalogue accompanying this exhibition features an essay by noted Church expert Dr. Gerald L. Carr. (left: Natural Bridge, 1852, 28 x 23 inches, oil on canvas, Collection Bayly Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville)
This exhibition has been organized by Berry-Hill Galleries, New York. Presentation at the Portland Museum of Art is made possible by the generous support of Linda Bean Folkers.
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In Search of The Promised Land: Paintings by Frederic Edwin Church (7/21/00)
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