Past Exhibitions

Capturing the Cosmos: Frederic Church painting Humboldt’s Vision of Nature

  • Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery
  • May 15 - October 30, 2016

Capturing the Cosmos, the 2016 exhibition in the Sharp Family Gallery, explored the influence of the great German Naturalist Alexander von Humboldt on Frederic Church. Read More

Capturing the Cosmos: Frederic Church painting Humboldt’s Vision of Nature

Olana on the road

The Rockies & the Alps Bierstadt, Calame, and the Romance of the Mountains

  • The Newark Museum
  • March 24 - August 19, 2018

The Rockies and the Alps places Newark’s renowned collection of 19th-century landscape painting in dialogue with European alpine painting of the same period. Read More

The Rockies & the Alps Bierstadt, Calame, and the Romance of the Mountains

Olana on the road

Pissarro: A Meeting on St. Thomas

  • Ordrupgaard Museum, Denmark
  • March 10 - July 2, 2017

Is there a link between Danish Golden Age painting and French Impressionism? On the occasion of the centenary of the sale of the Danish West Indies, Ordrupgaard is highlighting the encounter between the Danish Golden Age painter Fritz Melbye and the later ‘father’ of French Impressionism, Camille Pissarro, on the island of St. Thomas. Read More

Pissarro: A Meeting on St. Thomas

Mystery Box: Student Artists at Work

  • Coachman’s House Gallery
  • June 4 - July 31, 2016

The Coachman’s House Gallery was transformed into an experimental work space for Bard College undergraduate and MFA students, Scott van der Veen and Lily Prince, who were selected to experiment with research-based art-making practices at Olana. These students were available for questions and conversations throughout the summer weekends and visitors watched their artwork develop over... Read More

Mystery Box: Student Artists at Work

Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana’s Summer House

  • The Center for Architecture – New York City / Coachman’s House Gallery

The historic 1886 Plan of Olana is largely accurate, yet it contains one mystery: a structure labeled “Summer House”.  Summer houses were common in early American gardens and public landscapes, yet there is no documentary evidence about the style or form of this structure at Olana. Read More

Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana’s Summer House

Olana on the road

Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World

  • Brooklyn Museum of Art
  • October 2, 2015 - January 3, 2016

Olana has loaned two works from its collection to Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World on view at the Brooklyn Museum of Art October 2, 2015–January 3, 2016. Read More

Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World

Sharp Family Gallery 2015

  • Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery
  • May 1 - November 1, 2015

This season the Sharp Family Gallery features a range of the artwork and objects transferred from the first floor of the main house to accommodate the installation of Olana’s 2015 exhibition River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home, guest curated by Stephen Hannock and Jason Rosenfeld. Read More

Sharp Family Gallery 2015

River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home

  • Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Olana State Historic Site
  • May 3 - November 1, 2015

We are excited to announce our 2015 exhibition, River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home, presented in partnership with the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, featuring contemporary art installed directly into the historic spaces and landscapes of the two historic sites. Read More

River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home

Olana on the road

Connecting the World: The Panama Canal at 100

  • The Mint Museum
  • November 1, 2014 - February 1, 2015

Connecting the World: The Panama Canal at 100 opens in fall 2014, the centennial of the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, and brings together selected examples of the work of the three most important American artists to draw and paint the construction of the canal, printmaker Joseph Pennell and painters Alson Skinner Clark and Jonas Lie, for the first time. Read More

Connecting the World: The Panama Canal at 100

Mystery Box: Student Artists At Work

  • Coachman’s House Gallery
  • June - November 2015

Throughout the 2015 summer and fall season, The Olana Partnership gave nine Bard College students the opportunity to participate in a “research-based” artist residency program. On their first day they were given a box of unknown objects and materials that had been assembled by The Olana Partnership staff; all of these poems, photographs, and historic documents surfaced from Olana’s collections and circled around the theme “Trees, Art, and Tourism”. Read More

Mystery Box: Student Artists At Work