Description
The Thomas Cole National Historic Site (TCNHS) preserves and presents the home and workplace of the American painter Thomas Cole, a seminal figure in the rise of the antebellum Hudson River School. Situated on six acres in the Hudson Valley with a panoramic view of the Catskill Mountains, the site includes the main house (1815), first studio (1839), and the reconstructed “new studio” (1846), as well as staff facilities. TCNHS was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 after its rescue from decades of neglect and deterioration by a group of American art enthusiasts. The National Park System granted its affiliation in 1998 and the site opened to the public in 2001. With over 20,000 annual visitors, TCNHS seeks to engage audiences and extend its outreach through innovative installations and programs that foreground Cole’s art and ideas as they relate to shifting cultural histories and environmental awareness, then and now.
TCNHS has made extraordinary progress since the 2002 appointment of executive director Elizabeth Jacks. Significant steps have included the rehabilitation of the grounds, the reinterpretation of the first floor of the main house, and the reconstruction of Cole’s “new studio” as a museum-quality exhibition space. The work was accomplished with substantial grants from the Save America’s Treasures program, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute for Museum and Library Services. A Luce Foundation discretionary grant (2008) served as a first step in the launch of an expansive interpretive plan project for the main house. TCNHS then completed an in-depth furnishing plan, rehabilitation of the first floor, implementation of Cole’s own interior designs, the uncovering of his original decorative wall paintings, and new digital story-telling installations.
TCNHS now requests support to complete the final phase of the main house reinterpretation. Funding would underwrite completion of the restoration of Cole’s first-floor decorative wall paintings; revision and reinstallation of the second-floor collection-based exhibition, “Thomas Cole’s Creative Process”; digitization of primary source documents for public online access; and installation of audio interactive technology. The project work will be directed by Jacks, and carried out by historic interiors expert Jean Dunbar, and TCNHS’s manager of visitor engagement and director of exhibitions and collections.
This is an exciting moment to offer support to the TCNHS. It has achieved a ten-fold increase in its annual attendance and overall budget since 2009, driven largely by the success of the special exhibitions it organizes for the new studio space and the program of site-specific installations by contemporary artists, including Kiki Smith and Shi Guorui, in the main house. Forthcoming exhibitions in the new studio will notably include a project recommended in this year’s slate of proposed exhibition awards: “Cross-Pollination: Martin Johnson Heade’s Hummingbirds and Habitats” will place Heade’s paintings of Brazilian hummingbirds in dialogue with works by 19th-century and contemporary artists around the question of human impact on natural species and the environment.
The reach of the TCNHS’s work has been amplified by its lively education programs (on-site and in regional schools), lecture programs, a program of yearlong fellowships for rising scholars, and free community events. Attendance is expected to rise dramatically with the inauguration this fall of the Hudson River Skywalk, a new scenic walkway connecting the TCNHS and Olana, the home of Cole’s student, Frederic Church, across the Hudson River via the Rip Van Winkle Bridge.
This grant would continue the American Art Program’s support of new work at individual sites affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artists Homes and Studios group, which the Foundation is also currently supporting.
