Between 1881 and his death in 1900, Frederic Church made fifteen trips to Mexico. Inspired by the country’s varied topography and colonial architecture, he completed more than sixty plein-air oil sketches, graphite drawings, and finished paintings, while also collecting Mexican photographs, watercolors, books, ceramics, textiles, and Toltec reliefs. Although the last two decades of Church’s life are often dismissed as a period of unfulfilled potential marred by the artist’s failing health, an examination of his Mexican works reveals Church’s resilience, his ongoing engagement with international landscape traditions, and the significance of the landscape oil sketch–one of his greatest legacies.

DR. SHANNON VITTORIA, ASSOCIATE CURATOR, AMERICAN ART, LACMA’S research addresses transnational landscape art and environmental studies, the history of art making in California, and the professionalization of women artists. Prior to joining the staff at LACMA in 2024, she was the Assistant Curator of American Painting and Drawing in the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she co-curated the exhibitions “Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo” (in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2021) and “Artistic Encounters with Indigenous America” (2019). She also contributed to the research and organization of “Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings” (in collaboration with the National Gallery, London, 2018); “Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection” (2018); “Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural Rediscovered” (2014); and “The Armory Show at 100: Modernism and Revolution” (2013).

Vittoria holds a PhD from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where she completed her doctoral dissertation “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran” (1842-1899)—now the subject of a book manuscript. In the past, she held curatorial fellowships at the New-York Historical Society, the Frick Collection, and the Morgan Library and Museum. In addition to her work reinstalling LACMA’s permanent collection in the newly opened David Geffen Galleries, she is co-curating the forthcoming exhibition “California Collectives: Asian American Moderns,” 1924-1965.

Where does a legacy like Frederic Church’s begin? Learn more about Church’s earliest works and their broader contexts during this webinar with Joseph Mizhakiiyaasige Zordan, PhD Candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and contributor to forthcoming publication, Frederic Church: Global Artist. This presentation reexamines the role of local, national, and familial mentors in establishing Church’s artistic career, particularly through his painting Hooker’s Company housed in the collection of The Wadsworth. This presentation is moderated by Erin Monroe, Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Wadsworth and is offered in conjunction with Frederic Church 200, the bicentennial celebration of Church’s birth. Frederic Church 200 highlights exhibitions, installations, and programs nationwide. Learn more at olana.org/fc200.

Joseph Mizhakiiyaasige Zordan’s work broadly examines the intersections of European/Euro-American and Indigenous North American art and history, and the material legacies of settler colonialism. His research has been supported by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery, among others. Currently, he is a Henry Luce/American Council of Learned Societies Pre-Doctoral Fellow in American Art. Zordan is an enrolled member of the Bad River Ojibwe.

Erin Monroe is the Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Wadsworth, in Hartford, CT, where she has led the American art department since 2016. She oversees an extensive collection encompassing colonial portraiture, Hudson River School landscapes, neoclassical sculpture, modernism/surrealism, and mid-century abstraction. Drawing upon the breadth of the museum’s American art collections, Monroe has curated a range of exhibitions including Andrew Wyeth: Looking Beyond; Gorey’s Worlds; Paul Manship: Ancient Made Modern; and served as the in-house curator for Frederic Church: A Painter’s Pilgrimage, organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Monroe holds an M.A. in art history from Hunter College (CUNY), concentrating in modern art, and obtained a B.A. in art history from Northwestern University, with a minor in African studies.