Webinars

In the mid-nineteenth century, Americans faced a new way to encounter art: the traveling exhibition. Sculptures, panoramas, and paintings crisscrossed the country, appearing at venues that included exhibition and entertainment halls, galleries, reform societies, and fairs. During this virtual webinar, Caitlin Meehye Beach will explore the phenomenon of traveling exhibitions as they intersected a pressing concern of the day: the abolition of slavery. Following the publication of her 2022 book, Sculpture at the Ends of Slavery, this presentation focuses on three works in particular: Hiram Powers’ The Greek Slave, Henry “Box” Brown’s The Mirror of Slavery, and Frederic Edwin Church’s The Icebergs.

This webinar recording is available upon request. Please email education@olana.org.

During this webinar, Harvey Flad, Professor Emeritus of Geography at Vassar College, will share a personal perspective on how Olana’s views have been saved. Join Flad during this examination of how historic and aesthetic landscape, and other aspects of “community character,” has become a valued component of environmental review.

What happens when an artist and his travel companion set forth to chase icebergs? The immediate result is a suite of drawings and oil sketches created to inspire future paintings, and a travelogue written to draw attention to the artist’s dedication to his craft. During this virtual webinar, Eleanor Jones Harvey will recount Church’s voyage, which encompasses inspiration, accolades, disappearance, and rediscovery.

Ever wondered who lived in the Hudson Valley long before Frederic Church and his family? During this on-site talk, join historian Heather Bruegl to learn more about the Native Nations that called New York State home long before colonization. This program will touch on the Haudenosaunee, the Lenape and the Mohicans and will discuss history and land loss.

Against the backdrop of the picturesque Falls, Blacks cultivated a global and green outlook, developing the Niagara Movement which birthed the NAACP in the midst of Niagara’s wonders, whirlpools, and waves. During this webinar, dann j. Broyld will examine how Niagara, a vitally important painting subject for Church, speaks to a larger transformative transnational environment with potent importance for Blacks in the 19th century and beyond.

During this virtual webinar, Sean Sawyer, President of The Olana Partnership will discuss how Frederic Church engaged with the emerging field of ecology in the 19th century. By following in Alexander von Humboldt’s footsteps in his meteoric rise as the country’s most celebrated landscape painter and then in his four decade-long development of Olana, Church immersed himself in “landscape architecturing” to speak to the history of the land and human impact on it.

Amelia Edwards’ lifelong efforts to preserve Egyptian monuments not only firmly planted her legacy in Egyptian studies but brought Edwards to Olana to stay with Frederic Church. During this webinar, Dr. Peter Lacovara will discuss Edwards’ important efforts as the “Godmother of Egyptology,” including her co-founding of the Egypt Exploration Fund, which continues to set out annual expeditions to excavate, record, and preserve archaeological sites throughout Egypt.

Join Amanda Malmstrom, Associate Curator at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, for this presentation exploring the life, work, and legacy of Emily Cole (1843-1913), a lifelong artist of botanicals and painted porcelain. Emily’s life, art, and personal and professional circles provide a lens not only into American flower painting in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, but a way to examine the social and political implications of women’s work during this period and as presented at historic sites and museums today.

Edward Mitchell Bannister’s career as a successful practicing artist in New England during the late nineteenth century was considered normal. But, as an African American artist living during the 19th century, the level of normalcy Edward Bannister experienced was, in fact, quite exceptional. During this webinar, Rosalyn Delores Elder will explore Bannister’s career and how his laser-focused determination foreshadowed his future success in the midst of exceptional circumstances.

During this program, Sheila Bridges and Richard Saja will discuss the ways the legacy of toile has been altered, homaged, and expanded, moderated by journalist Sabine Rothman. As Sheila Bridges’ prominent toile series incorporates new and unexpected images into a toile motif—such as scenes reflecting Sheila Bridges’ African American heritage or images of Frederic Church painting a cell tower—Saja uses embroidery to create unexpected images out of traditional toile fabric.

Join artist Valerie Hegarty and art historian Alexis L. Boylan for a virtual presentation and discussion about how Hegarty’s recent work connects the past and present, incorporating and interrogating historical narratives from the 19th century and beyond. Hegarty will examine how her 2021 exhibition, Gone Viral, engages with our own contemporary history while drawing from her past work and larger histories.

Learn more about the introduction, spread, and management of invasive species during this virtual webinar. Department of Environmental Conservation Invasive Species Forester Rob Cole and filmmaker Steve Powers will discuss Westfield Production Company’s recent documentary, Uninvited, that introduces the concept of invasive species. Their presentation will highlight some of the species threatening New York’s environment and economy, while also showing some innovative ways that New York State is combating these threats.

In this virtual lecture, Historic New England’s Ken Turino narrates the history of female abolitionists in America and their contributions to the development of modern American Christmas traditions. These abolitionists, including Maria Chapman and Lydia Marie Child, hosted Christmas fairs to raise money for the abolitionist cause. These fairs had a wide-ranging influence on a number of Christmas traditions, including the adoption of greenery and the Christmas tree in America.

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.

Join artists Sayler/Morris, Rachel Sussman, and Dr. Scott Manning Stevens as they discuss the connections between art, ecology, and climate change. Sussman’s photographic series The Oldest Living Things in the World and Sayler/Morris’s video installation Eclipse are included in Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment, on view at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Olana State Historic Site. The panel will be co-moderated by Cross Pollination Co-Curators Kate Menconeri and Will Coleman.