Coffee Extravaganza: 19th Century Displays of Abundance and the Art of Coffee Drinking

Like many Americans, artist Frederic Church was an avid coffee drinker, preferring it to tea and favoring beans from Latin America, a frequent destination for his travels. During Church’s lifetime, the United States became the largest importer of coffee in the world, sourcing most of their product from Brazil. Striking World’s Fair exhibits and other celebratory imagery obscured shortsighted agricultural methods and exploitative labor practices upon which this industry relied. During this virtual webinar, Caroline Gillaspie will explore Brazil’s impressive agricultural exhibit at the 1876 U.S. Centennial exhibition alongside other artworks depicting coffee drinking in the United States as they reflected the developing taste for the beverage in the 19th century.

Caroline Gillaspie is the Assistant Curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She received her PhD in Art History from the CUNY Graduate Center where she completed a dissertation titled, “‘Delicious Libation’: The Art of the Coffee Trade from Brazil to the United States, 1797-1888.” Much of her research is focused on ecocritical approaches to art history with a particular focus on landscape painting across the Americas. She was a proud docent at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site for six seasons, and subsequently went on to teach art history courses at universities in New York City.