Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Frederic Church’s birth (American, 1826–1900), this exhibition draws from Cooper Hewitt’s holdings of over 2,000 of the artist’s oil and graphite sketches—the largest collection of Church works in the world.
Frederic Church in Jamaica brings together over 60 works documenting Jamaica’s plant life and landscapes in detailed observational studies, framed within Church’s personal biography, and the wider context of a society and environment under colonial rule. These sketches offer a window into the process of one of America’s most influential artists.
Acclaimed for his monumental and astonishingly detailed landscape paintings, Church was an intrepid traveler and regularly journeyed around the globe seeking inspiration for his pictures. However, his April 1865 trip to Jamaica with his wife, Isabel, was in search of emotional and spiritual refuge, following the recent deaths of their two young children from diphtheria. Every day for five months, Church trekked on foot and by horse documenting the island’s topography and plant life and capturing dramatic moments of light and weather. The works were created during unrest amidst the artist’s private anguish and the public turmoil engulfing the country, where Black Jamaicans lived in extreme poverty under British colonial rule. These breathtaking sketches attest to the expressive and healing power of drawing from nature and the complexity of memory imbued in the land.