One of the most well-known artists from the Hudson River school, Frederic Edwin Church was an American Romantic landscape painter. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 4, 1826, and passed away close to New York City on April 7, 1900.
Church spent their entire lives as friends with the painter Thomas Cole, who taught him at his Catskill, New York, home. Church started by looking for natural wonders to photograph, such icebergs, Niagara Falls, and erupting volcanoes.
The German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt’s writings had a big impact on him, and in 1853, he visited the home of Humboldt while traveling in Ecuador. Church did a fantastic job of depicting the splendor of the tropical jungles and Andes Mountains.
He produced realistic and emotionally impactful representations by combining light and color with the representation of natural phenomena like mist, sunsets, and rainbows. Church occasionally took a methodical approach to a topic because of his interests in natural science and exotic places.
For instance, he spent several years painting Cotopaxi, the volcano in Ecuador, in various stages of eruption. Church was admitted to the National Academy of Design in 1849. His three most important works are Copaxi (1862), Niagara (1857), and the Andes of Ecuador (1855).
Church sold his paintings for hefty sums of money during his lifetime and was highly praised for his creations. He took many trips around Europe and the Middle East, but after 1877 he had to give up painting due to severe rheumatism in his hands.
He passed away at his Hudson River home, Olana, which is now a museum. When art historians started to recognize Church as one of the greatest American landscape painters in the late 20th century, interest in his paintings was sparked once more. In 1979, Church’s long-lost masterwork Icebergs (1861) was found.