Frederic Edwin Church
American, 1826-1900
View of Cotopaxi, 1857
Oil on canvas
62.2 x 92.7 cm (24 1/2 x 36 1/2 in.)
Signed, lower right: "F. E. Church '57"
Gift of Jennette Hamlin in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Dana Webster, 1919.753
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
Chicago, Burch’s Building, Chicago Exhibition of Fine Arts First Exhibition of Statuary, Paintings, etc, 1859, cat. 180, as “Landscape.”
Chicago, McVicker’s Theatre Building, Chicago Exhibition of the Fine Arts of the Chicago Branch of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1863, cat. 200, as “South America.”
Art Institute of Chicago and New York City, Whitney Museum of Art, The Hudson River School, 1945, cat. 45.
New London, Conn., Lyman Allyn Museum, Eighty Eminent Painters of Connecticut, 1947, cat. 90.
Milwaukee-Downer College, A Century of Landscape Paintings by American Artists 1851-1951, 1951, cat. 3.
Durand Art Institute, Lake Forest College, A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago, June 10-16, 1957, cat. 1.
Newark, University of Delaware and Wilmington Society of Fine Arts, American Painting 1857-1869, Jan. 10-Feb. 18, 1962, cat. 14.
Washington, D.C., National Museum of American Art, Creation and Renewal: Views of Cotopaxi by Frederic Edwin Church, Mar. 29-July 14, 1985, cat. 6.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Frederic Edwin Church, Oct. 8, 1989-Jan. 28, 1990, cat. 29.
Tokyo, Japan, "Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago"; traveled to Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Apr. 20-May 29, 1994, Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10-July 24, 1994, Yokohama Museum of Art Aug. 6-Sept. 25, 1994.
New York City, Berry-Hill Galleries, In Search of the Promised Land: Frederic Edwin Church and Exploration, Apr. 25-June 30, 2000; traveled to Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Aug. 5-Oct. 1, 2000, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, Oct. 21, 2000-Jan. 3, 2001, Portland Museum of Art, Maine, Jan. 18-Mar. 18, 2001 (Maine only).
Publication History
Chicago Press and Tribune, June 1, 1859, p. 2.
“The Art Exhibition,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 27, 1863, p. 2.
“The Art Exhibition of the Sanitary Fair: First Alcove,” Chicago Daily Journal, Oct. 29, 1863, p. 4.
Handbook of Paintings and Drawings, The Art Institute of Chicago, pt. II (Art Institute of Chicago, 1920), p. 56, no. 547.
The Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 14 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1920), p. 28.
Guide to the Paintings and Drawings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 130, no. 547.
Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 45 (Sept 1951), p. 45 (ill.).
“Art in Chicago: Americans Reinstalled,” Art Digest (Oct. 1951), ill.
David C. Huntington, Frederic Edwin Church, 1826-1900: Painter of the Adamic New World Myth (Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 1960), p. 107.
David Hanks, “American Paintings at The Art Institute of Chicago,” Nov. 1973, p. 902.
Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998) pp. 188-90, no. 86.
Ownership History
Walter Wright, Chicago, from 1857 to 1876; by descent to Anne E. Webster, from 1876 to 1894; by descent to Lewis Dana Webster, from 1894 to 1908; by descent to Ida Hamlin Webster, from 1908 to 1912; by descent to Mary Jennette Hamlin, from 1912 to 1919; given to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1919.