Hudson River School | Art Trail | Thomas Cole

Only a master landscape painter can make a place come alive on canvas and transport you to a new location. The Hudson River School painters—including Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, and Jasper Francis Cropsey—were able to capture the essence of a setting and make you feel as though you were standing there with them alongside their easel as they worked. Visiting the newly expanded Hudson River School Art Trail allows art and nature enthusiasts to follow in the footsteps of these masters and, perhaps, stand alongside their easels afterall.

The Hudson River School Art Trail comprises a series of hiking and driving trails that guide you to the locations where many of the leading Hudson River School artists painted. Maintained by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and the Hudson River Valley Greenway, the trail was organized in 2005 with 8 sites along the Hudson River; the newly expanded trail now has 22 sites and includes areas in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Wyoming.

Along with the introduction of the new locations comes a new website as well. You will find detailed information on each site, from historic facts and quotations from the artists that worked there, to practical information such as directions, hours, and maps. Perhaps the best feature of the new site is the “Exhibits” that accompany each location on the trail. These Exhibits contain famous paintings of the area as well as both archival and contemporary photographs.

While the detailed information for the Connecticut River, White Mountains, and Yellowstone will not be added until September, all of the content for the Hudson River Valley was launched on June 2^nd. And now that New York alone as 17 sites, there should be plenty to explore while you wait for September.

Victor de Grailly (1804-1889), “View from Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts (and the Oxbow, Connecticut River)”

John William Casilear (1811-1893), “Looking towards Catskills,” 1874

Nina Sangimino is the Research Associate at Questroyal Fine Art. She earned an M.S. in art history from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in the same field from the University at Albany. Prior to joining Questroyal, Nina was Curatorial Apprentice at the Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport, New York.