Subject Specialist Talk: Frederic Edwin Church & W.H. Osborn: Art, Patronage and Friendship by Dr. Christine Isabelle Oaklander

April 22, 2020

Christine Oaklander is an independent art historian and private art consultant with over thirty years of expertise in the field of American art. A native New Yorker, she was inspired to plunge into the mystery, history, and beauty of American art by posts at the New-York Historical Society and Spanierman Gallery in the 1980s.

Dr. Oaklander spoke on the lifelong friendship between Frederic Church and William Henry Osborn, Church’s principal patron. Osborn (1820-1894) was a self-made man with a fortune he had earned through natural business acumen. Introduced by Jonathan Sturges, Osborn became fast friends with Church. Osborn not only owned some of Church’s best paintings, he helped finance the artist’s extended trip to the Holy Land and Europe in 1867-69, and the Osborn home in New York City served as the Church family’s New York City home. The friendship, which extended through both families, lasted three generations. The names Frederic(k) and Church are carried down in the Osborn family to the current day.