Niagara Falls, from the American Side 1867
Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900)
National Galleries of Scotland
(b Hartford, Conn., 4 May 1826; d New York, 7 Apr. 1900). American landscape painter. Church was a pupil and friend of Thomas Cole and continued the Hudson River School's interest in depicting spectacular natural scenery; his Niagara (1857, Corcoran Gal., Washington) established him as the most famous painter in the USA. However, Church looked beyond his native country for subjects, travelling widely and painting, for example, the tropical forests of South America, icebergs, and exploding volcanoes, often on a huge scale. His work was immensely popular in his day, and after a period of neglect is returning to favour again. His house, Olana, on the Hudson River, is now a museum.
Text source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press)
