Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole is arguably the premier American landscape painter of the nineteenth century. Born in England at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, he grew up in a working class family involved in textile manufacturing, and so from an early age, was well-informed of the effects of industrialization and progress. Cole’s family immigrated to Philadelphia in 1818, but then moved on to Ohio.

Cole later returned to Philadelphia, where he was greatly influenced by painters like Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, and Thomas Doughty. As a painter, he was largely self-taught and never received formal training. Eventually, Cole moved to New York City, where he began to sell a few landscape paintings. There, he was helped tremendously by John Trumbull, president of the American Academy of Fine Arts, who introduced him to many wealthy American patrons. Lake with Dead Trees was one of three early landscape paintings that garnered attention and helped launch Cole’s career and popularity. In London, 1829, Cole met J.M.W. Turner and John Constable, two very well-known, highly influential British landscape artists. A little more than 10 years later, he traveled to Italy, and worked there for two years painting landscapes, incorporating what he learned into his later American works. After gaining a substantial following of artists who made up the Hudson River School, Cole was nominated for membership in the American Academy of Fine Arts by Samuel Morse, and later became a “charter member” of the National Academy of Design.