Frederic Edwin Church Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

5-4-1826 Hartford, Connecticut USA – 4-7-1900 New York, NY USA

Church, Frederic Edwin

Frederic Edwin Church was a pivotal figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large panoramic landscapes of wild America, but also painting dramatic natural phenomena that he saw during his travels to the Arctic and Central and South America.

Because of his family's riches, Frederic Edwin Church was allowed to chase after his enthusiasm for art from an early age. At eighteen years old, Church was the student of Thomas Cole after a family neighbor and founder of the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Daniel Wadsworth, acquainted the two. At the age of twenty-three, Church was elected as the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design and was promoted to Academician the next year.

Church glorified an uninterrupted nature, highlighted by creating detailed art. Painting in a Luminist style, an innovation from the Hudson River School. Church's career began by painting Hudson River scenes of New York. Church’s painting method consisted of creating paintings in his studio based on sketches created of views in the summer months.

Frederic Edwin Church took two trips to Quito, Ecuador, the first in 1853 and the second in 1857. One trip was financed by a businessman, who wanted to use Church's paintings to get investors for his South American venture. When Church returned in back to New York in 1857 he painted The Heart of the Andes, it was debuted in 1859 and won Church immediate fame.

It was at long last appeared in New York City, Frederic Edwin Church had set up the show like a house, with artwork filling the role of a window watching out over the Andes. He finished the look with Ecuadorian plants from his voyages and a frame and curtains which the onlookers sitting on benches looked through, creating the illusion of a view out of a window.

The public was charged admission and provided with opera glasses to inspect the painting's details. The work was a monumental success and a creative achievement. Church sold it for $10,000, around then the most astounding price ever paid for a work by a living American artist. During the Civil War, Church was motivated to paint the very patriotic Our Banner in the Sky, from which a lithograph was made and sold to benefit the families of Union soldiers.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City exhibited The Heart of the Andes in its unique frame in 1995-96. Americans soon started to consider Frederic Edwin Church as the “Michelangelo of Landscape Art”. Likewise, one of Church's most remarkable achievements was his business achievement. Church’s art was lucrative, he was reported to be worth approximately half-a-million dollars at his death, about $14 million today. Americans were enchanted with Church’s all-American appeal and brilliant body of work.

He was a founding trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and served with the organization from 1870 to 1887. Enthusiasm for Church's works was revived in the late 20th century when art historians began to think of him as one of the preeminent American landscape oil painters.

Art Movement: Hudson River School.
Artists Influencing Frederic Edwin Church: Thomas Cole.
He Traveled To Ecuador, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Arctic, Colombia, Greece.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.

Frederic Edwin Church Hand-Painted Oil Painting Reproductions.

Frederic Edwin Church Museum Art Replicas on Canvas.

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