Yankee Enterprise: Finances and Fine Art in Church’s “Heart of the Andes”

One of America’s most renowned landscapists, the New England-born Frederic Church, based his large-scale Heart of the Andes (1859) on his two trips to South America in 1853 and 1857. After the 5 x 10 ft. canvas left the artist’s studio, it went on a single-picture exhibition tour from 1859 to 1861, during which it was arguably seen by more people than any other painting of its day. Church’s pay-per-view audiences came away sure they had enjoyed an authentic glimpse of the tropical landscape of South America that so inspired the artist. And he made a tidy profit in the process.

During this presentation, Katherine Manthorne will explore Church’s savvy in media and fine art that he deployed to plan his travels, and paint and market his “great picture” Heart of the Andes to a 19th Century audience. This webinar will explore how Church navigated the business side of his craft and ultimately ensured the painting’s place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which he later helped found.

Katherine Manthorne is an art historian at the Graduate Center, City University of New York committed to the study of the art of the Americas (1800-1940) in its hemispheric dimensions. Landscape imagery is a special passion, embodied in publications like Tropical Renaissance: North American Artists Exploring Latin America, 1839-1879 (1989) and Traveler Artists: Landscapes of Latin America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (2015). Women’s contributions to visual culture constitutes another theme in her work featured in two books: Women in the Dark: American Female Photographers 1850-1900 (2020) and Restless Enterprise: The Art and Life of Eliza Pratt Greatorex (2020). Dr. Manthorne received fellowships from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Fulbright and Smithsonian Institution.