Sanford Robinson Gifford was a key figure of the Hudson River School, the group of landscape painters that flourished in the New York region in the mid-19th century. The Catskill Mountains were an important subject for Gifford, who made drawings and oil sketches like this one during excursions in the area; such works often served as source material for larger compositions produced later in his studio. Mist Rising at Sunset in the Catskills is a swift, freely rendered depiction of evanescent mist above a pond and brilliantly illuminated clouds amid a low sun. Two men attending a boat on the shore give the mountainous scene a sense of grandeur despite the painting’s small dimensions.
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John F. Weir, “A Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford, N.A.,” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1881) cat. 191, 21.
Angela Miller, “Albert Bierstadt, Landscape Aesthetics, and the Meanings of the West in the Civil War Era,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, 1 (2001), 40–59, fig. 3.
New York, Alexander Gallery, Sanford R. Gifford, Mar. 20–Apr. 19, 1986, cat. 11, (ill.)
Dallas Museum of Art, ‘That Earlier, Wilder Image’: Sketches by American Landscape Painters, 1830–1880, June 14–Sept. 13, 1998; Washington DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Oct. 11, 1998–Jan. 10, 1999, Williamstown, Mass. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Feb. 6–May 9, 1999 (published as The Painted Sketch: American Impressions of Nature, 1830–1880).
London, Tate Gallery, American Sublime, Feb. 20–May 19, 2002; Munich, Haus der Kunst, June 13–Sept. 1, 2002, Minneapolis, Institute of Fine Arts, Sept. 22–Nov. 17, 2002.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Oct. 7, 2003–Feb. 8, 2004; Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum, Mar. 4–May 16, 2004, Washington DC, National Gallery, June 27–Sept. 26, 2004.
Estate of the artist. Alexander Gallery, New York, by 1986; sold to Jamee J. and Marshall Field, Chicago; given by them to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1988.
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