GCA Lecture by Dr. Linda S. Ferber - Tuesday, May 22nd

This Tuesday, May 22nd, Dr. Linda S. Ferber will be speaking at GCA. Dr. Ferber is the Vice President and Senior Art Historian at the New York Historical Society, and she has also served as the Chair of the Department of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She is a leading expert in the study of the Hudson River School and has published and curated numerous books and shows on the subject, including the excellent book, The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision. We are happy to have Dr. Ferber lecturing here, and her words will make for excellent preparation for this year's summer landscape painting.

The Course of Empire: Savage State
Thomas Cole - 1858

"Nature's Nation":

Americans and Landscape Painting, 1825 - 1876

The presentation will introduce GCA students [and lecture attendees] to the important role played by local landscape subject matter, or American scenery, in the early development of both national and cultural identity in 19th-century America. Showing iconic American landscape paintings by Cole, Church, Durand, Bierstadt and others, I will discuss how this development propelled the rise of the Hudson River School and the popularity of landscape destinations like the Catskills and the White Mountains for artists and tourists alike. These journeys into nature are still reflected today in the very existence of our state and national parks. Moreover, landscape painters' houses and studios have also been preserved as historic sites. Therefore when artists today work en plein air to sketch or paint landscape, especially at sites along the Hudson and in the Adirondack and White Mountains, they are entering a long, rich historical and cultural dialogue with both nature and national identity.
- Linda Ferber


The lecture will take place from 5 to 6 PM in the GCA cast hall at 20 W 44th St in Midtown Manhattan.