Frederic Edwin Church arrived in New Granada on April 28th,1853 seeking inspiration from the tropical landscape that was previously recorded by Alexander von Humboldt in Cosmos (1845). This talk will follow the trail left by Church while crossing the territory of current-day Colombia, characterized by his fascination with what he encountered and the great discomforts of navigating the complex geography and culture.

Join Dr. Elizabeth Stack, Executive Director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, and Daniel W. Bigler, Historic Site Assistant at Olana State Historic Site, for a virtual presentation and conversation about the lives of Irish American servants hired at Frederic Church’s Olana. This conversation will use the Church’s history of employing Irish immigrants as a framework to consider the network of Irish domestic servants that existed in the region during the 19th century.

During this webinar, Julia B. Rosenbaum considers the first-floor interiors of his home at Olana not only as a deliberate composition—of a piece with his two-dimensional oeuvre—but as an aesthetic culmination of Frederic Church’s enduring engagement with issues of visual perception and bodily proprioception.

Presented in conjunction with Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment, this virtual lecture will focus on what Dr. Theodore E. Stebbins calls Martin Johnson Heade’s “topsy-turvy career.” During the presentation, Dr. Stebbins will provide a glimpse at some of his own changing thoughts on the painter, the circumstances of Heade’s rediscovery in 1943, and the way Heade’s reputation has continued to grow.

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site and The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site present a discussion with artists Paula Hayes, Lisa Sanditz, and beekeeper Chris Layman from Fox Apiary. In this webinar, our guests examine the connections between art, ecology, environmental stewardship, and our role in local habitats.

In this webinar, The Olana Partnership’s Curatorial Assistant, Allegra K. Davis, will examine the life and work of Marianne North through the lenses of Victorian gender roles and practices of imperial science, while drawing parallels between Church and North as travelers, painters, and ultimately, collectors on a global scale.