LEARN: The Collections

 Visitors touring beautiful Olana will see the paintings, sculpture and furnishings Frederic and Isabel Church acquired over the course of their lives, which surrounded them and their children, servants and guests in their daily life at Olana.
The collection was described by a 19th century guest as, "a museum of fine arts rich in bronzes, paintings, sculptures and antique and artistic specimens from all over the world."
Today's visitor experience is remarkably unchanged, with the public encountering interiors that look as they did in the 1890s-- the virtually intact home of one of America's most important painters. The sheer richness and depth of the collections speak to Church's life-long interest in acquiring intriguing objects from around the world.The whole is an exemplary example of an early Aesthetic Movement interior.

 Highlights of the collection include paintings by Frederic Church and fellow Hudson River School artists Martin Johnson Heade and Arthur Parton, and numerous works by his close friend sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer.


The eclectic assortment of furniture and art collected on his many travels abroad and purchased from the growing number of purveyors in New York City include, Middle Eastern carpets,
metalwork,ceramics and costumes; old master paintings; Mexican and colonial folk art; pre-Columbian art; and 19th century American and Oriental furniture.

Object of The Month

An oil study of a Pelican Flower or Aristolochia grandiflora which was listed in the Olana collection as "by an unidentified artist," is now tentatively attributed to the British flower painter Marianne North. North is quite a character - she never married, instead she traveled the world painting. Stops on her "world-tour" included Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Java, Canada and the U.S. While exploring Jamaica North recorded "one delightful day in the Bog Walk... I saw the great aristolochia trailing over the trees... "

In 1871, just before her journey to Jamaica, North met Frederic Church in New York and was invited up to the farm, staying in Cosy Cottage, meeting the family and finding inspiration in Church's studio where she saw "a picture in progress of Chimborazo...and studies which made me more then ever anxious to go and visit those countries." Ten years later she made a second visit to Olana, enjoying the exotic new house and discussing with Church the attributes of various exotic destinations; Church shared recent impressions of Mexico and recommended the exploration of New Granada. Might North have given Church her sketch of the Aristolochia - a tropical memento from one adventurer to another?

Study of a Pelican Flower is in very poor condition. Loose flaking paint is in desperate need of stabilization before details of this study are lost forever. Please consider making a donation toward the conservation of this work.

The painting will be included in the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery's 2010 exhibition Fern Hunting among Picturesque Mountains: Frederic Edwin Church in Jamaica and after the painting will be displayed in one of the 2nd floor furnished rooms.

Towards the end of her life, North gave her all her paintings to Kew Gardens and made them accessible to visitors by building the Marianne North Gallery. To view her work please visit the Kew Gardens website