By Amy Hufnagel, Director of Education

The complex challenges facing cultural organizations today require an ability (and willingness) to be contemporary in intention and action (even when historic) and mindful of every opportunity to delight visitors. I aspire to SuperMuseum qualities (as defined by Aimee Chang, Director of Engagement at the UC Berkeley Art Museum). SuperMuseums are driven by why they do what they do and for whom they work as their priority; these successful organizations then plan backwards from why to what they do.

The …Read More

Olana’s original guides and hosts Mary Ann Bikes, Alice Gold, Kay Sterns, Ruby Funk, Ruth Karmer and Mary Mazzacano in the Court Hall, c. 1960s, Olana Collection

By Daphne Mayer, Membership and Volunteer Coordinator

In this 50^th anniversary year of Olana opening to the public as a NY State Historic Site, I would like to highlight the efforts of Olana’s first volunteers.  These pioneering men and women led the charge to save Olana in 1966, tirelessly gave tours and hosted events to raise the funds needed to secure Olana’s future, while helping to …Read More

Mark Prezorski, Senior Vice President & Creative Director

“I am building a house and am principally my own Architect. I give directions all day and draw plans and working drawings all night.”
— Frederic Church, 1871

“I am busy landscape architecturing!”
— Frederic Church, 1887

The words of Frederic Church were highlighted in Olana’s recent exhibition, Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana’s Summer House. This design exhibition, which unites 21 visionary architects and landscape architects, allowed The Olana Partnership to feature aspects of Frederic Church’s talents which are sometimes overlooked. In addition to being a famous landscape painter, Church also viewed himself as an …Read More

Valerie Balint, Interim Director of Collections and Research

Last year we celebrated the saving of Olana in 1966, and its long-term successful stewardship and restoration through the collaborative efforts of New York State and The Olana Partnership. As we know, in 1953, over a decade before Olana Preservation Inc., and New York State saved Olana, Sally Good Church welcomed a young scholar, David Huntington for tea, and he was given permission to use the resources at Olana to research Frederic Church for his dissertation. This led to his passion for Church and Olana, and to his leading the charge to save …Read More

Valerie A. Balint, Interim Director of Collections and Research

A tree in its fall glory last week at Olana

“When the autumn fires light up the landscape you will see Nature’s palette set with her most precious and vivid colors. . .” Frederic E. Church to fellow Hudson River School painter, Jervis McEntee, autumn 1874

For some time I have been patiently waiting for the trees to array themselves in their full autumnal splendor, and this past week I was finally rewarded! From my office window on the second floor of the main house …Read More

Valerie Balint
Interim Director of Collections and Research

“It is a particularly lovely Autumn here . . . mainly soft weather toned to suit an Artist’s eye.” Frederic E. Church to painter John Ferguson Weir from Olana, October 1891

This past weekend I had the pleasure of hosting a descendant of Frederic Church’s student Lockwood de Forest. As we stood in front of the main house and took in the sweeping southern view down the hill to the Hudson, I spoke of teacher and pupil sitting side by side painting the same sunset, referencing a pair of plein air oil sketches which remain …Read More

Daphne Mayer
Membership and Volunteer Coordinator, The Olana Partnership

Do you want to help Olana?  If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you do.  We need caring and enthusiastic individuals like you to become Olana volunteers.  Fifty years ago, the fight to save Olana was led by volunteers both young and old.  Without their dedication and effort, Olana’s treasures might have been scattered across the globe and the house and estate parceled off for development.  Volunteers were the lifeblood of Olana back then and they still are today.  If you’ve ever taken a …Read More

Mark Prezorski
Landscape Curator, The Olana Partnership

Jane Smith
Exhibition Co-curator, Spacesmith LLP

The summer house was a feature in early American design, and examples appeared in both private and public gardens, such as New York’s Central Park. One appears in the 1886 historic “Plan of Olana” and is labeled “Summer House”. Everything on this plan is more or less accurate, yet there is no documentary evidence to support what Olana’s summer house looked like. Its design remains a mystery.

Olana is the 250-acre creation of America’s great landscape artist Frederic Church. It is a three-dimensional work of art – …Read More