Sarah Cole, Susie M. Barstow, Eliza Greatorex, Harriet Cany Peale, Jane Stuart, Evelina Mount. Recognize any of those names?
I thought not.
They and a half-dozen or so additional artists are the subject of an exhibit at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site called “Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School,” which sets as its goal the rewriting of that period of American art history.
I wrote the story for Smithsonian, so I won’t repeat it all here. But here are some key passages:
…These women ventured…into the wilderness, painting the glorious scenery that inspired America’s first art movement.
…Often they were the sisters, daughters and wives of better-known male artists. Harriet Cany Peale, at first a student of Rembrandt Peale, became his second wife. Sarah Cole was Thomas Cole’s sister; her daughter Emily Cole is also in the exhibit. Jane Stuart called Gilbert Stuart “father.” Evelina Mount was niece to William Sidney Mount, while Julia Hart Beers was the sister of two artists, William Hart and James Hart. Others–Barstow, Eliza Greatorex and Josephine Walters, among them–had no relatives in the art world.
…[their] work…reflects the same romantic sensibility, respect for balance, luminosity and love of picturesque landscapes as those of artists like Cole, Asher B. Durand and Frederic Church.
The exhibition’s curators, Nancy J. Siegel and Jennifer C. Krieger, are looking for additional works — and additional female artists — of the period, in hopes of researching and organizing a much larger show for larger museums down the road. Already, a few new names have come to light: Emma Roseloe Sparks Prentice, Margaretta Angelica Peale and Rachel Ramsey Wiles (mother of Irving Wiles).
Photo Credits: Kaaterskill Clove, by Harriet Cany Peale, 1858 (top), Summer Landscape, by Julie Hart Beers, (bottom), 1869; Both from private collections, courtesy of Hawthorne Fine Art