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Hudson River School Paintings

HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL STYLE

Considered the first major American painting movement, the Hudson River School emerged in the first half of the 19th century with landscape paintings that celebrated the young country’s natural beauty. Most of its leading painters were based in New York City where they exchanged ideas and traveled to the nearby Hudson River Valley and Catskills Mountains to re-create their vistas. At a time when the city was increasingly dense, the Hudson River School artists extolled the vast and pristine qualities of the American landscape, a sentiment that would inform the conservation movement.

American art was dominated by portraiture and historical scenes before Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, began painting the Catskill Mountains in 1825. While the Hudson River School was informed by European art aesthetics, particularly the British focus on the sublime in nature, it was a style imbued with nationalism. The landscape painters who followed and studied under Cole would expand their focus from the Northeastern United States to places across the country, their work shared through prints and portfolios promoting an appreciation for the American wilderness — Niagara Falls, the mountain ranges that dot the American West and more — as the style blossomed during the mid-19th century.

Cole’s student Frederic Edwin Church as well as painters such as Albert Bierstadt, John Frederick Kensett, Asher Brown Durand and others became prominent proponents of the Hudson River School. The American art movement also had close ties to the literary world, including to authors like William Cullen Bryant, Henry David Thoreau and James Fenimore Cooper who wrote on similar themes. Although by the early 1900s the style had waned, and modernism would soon guide the following decades of art in the United States, the Hudson River School received renewed interest in the late 20th century for the dramatic way its artists portrayed the world.

Find a collection of authentic Hudson River School paintings, drawings and watercolors and more art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Hudson River School
Artist: Samuel Colman
Landscape
Located in New York, NY
Hudson River School artist Samuel Colman paints an idyllic landscape in the late afternoon glow in his artwork entitled, “Landscape.”
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Tower of Babel, Colorado Canyon oil painting by Samuel Colman
Located in Hudson, NY
Tower of Babel, Colorado Canyon 12 ⅞" x 14 ½" 20 ¾" x 22 ¾" x 4 ¼" framed Verso sketch of fall trees on a hillside. Provenance: The estate of Samuel Colman. Purchased by private c...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

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Highlands - Hudson River from West Point by Thomas B. Pope (American, 1834-1891)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Thomas Benjamin Pope (1834–1891), "Highlands - Hudson River from West Point Looking North" is oil on canvas ...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Paintings

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Seascape by George Herbert McCord (American, 1848-1909)
Located in New York, NY
"Seascape," by Hudson River School artist George Herbert McCord (1848-1909) is oil on canvas and measures 18.07 x 30.13 inches. The work which comes from a private collection in Birmingham, Alabama is signed “G.H. McCord A.N.A.” at the lower left. The work is framed in a beautiful, period appropriate frame, and ready to hang. A member of the second generation of Hudson River School painters, George Herbert McCord is known for his atmospheric landscape and marine paintings which capture a variety of locales and are executed in a variety of media—including oil, pastel, and watercolor. McCord was born in 1848 in New York City, where he lived and worked his entire life. After 1883, he kept an additional studio in Morristown, NJ. McCord traveled throughout North America, painting in the Berkshire, Adirondack and Laurentian mountain ranges, the Hudson River Valley, the Coast of New England, the Upper Mississippi, and Florida, which had become popular among Eastern vacationers. He was among a select group of artists commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad to paint the Grand Canyon, and also participated in a special painting excursion to the Erie Canal. His travels in Europe were equally expansive, taking him to England, Scotland (having been commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to paint the scenery around his castle there), France, the Netherlands, and Italy. McCord was well-educated, having attended Claverack College amidst the Catskills in Claverack, NY, which provided instruction in classical, French, German, English, music, painting, military, commercial, telegraphic and agricultural studies. He also studied with the accomplished painter and inventor of Morse code, Samuel F.B. Morse, and with the Scottishborn landscape painter, James Fairman. McCord was active in numerous art clubs and institutions in New York, including the National Academy of Design, which elected him an Associate member in 1880, the American Watercolor Society, the Brooklyn Art...
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19th Century Hudson River School Paintings

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Romantic American School Fall Forest Interior Impressionist Framed Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American impressionist fall forest oil painting. Oil on canvasboard. Finely painted and housed in a period giltwood frame.
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1890s Hudson River School Paintings

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1880s Original Hudson River School Landscape -- Sunset Through The Forest
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Beautiful Hudson River School Original gouache autumnal landscape of vivid sunset through forest by Charles Russell Loomis (American 1857 - 1936), circa 1880. Warm and cool tones wit...
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1880s Hudson River School Paintings

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Shawangunk Mountains by Lemuel Maynard Wiles (American, 1826-1905)
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Shawangunk Mountains [View from top of Granit Road Looking Southeast] by Hudson River School artist Lemuel Maynard Wiles (1826-1905) is oil on can...
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19th Century White Mountain Landscape, Unknown American School
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Unknown White Mountain Artist White Mountain Landscape, 19th Century Oil on board 5 x 9 1/4 in. Framed: 7 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.
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19th Century Hudson River School Paintings

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Delaware Gap
Located in Milford, NH
A finely detailed oil landscape of the Delaware Gap attributed to French American artist Regis Francois Gignoux (1816-1882). Gignoux was born in Lyon, France, and began his studies i...
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Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Paintings

Materials

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Delaware Gap
Delaware Gap
H 24.25 in W 37.5 in D 1.25 in
Lake Placid, Whiteface Mountain
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Monogram lower right. But for sheer numbers, as well as degree of fame, the activity which is most closely linked with this Adirondack town is painting. Mrs. Peggy O'Brien, who has long studied Adirondack artists, finds over 400 have painted in these mountains and Keene Valley was the summer capital for many of them. The earliest in the valley are Asher B. Durand (1796-1800), considered a co-founder of the Hudson River School, John Casilear (1811 -1893) and John F. Kensett (1816 - 1871) coming in 1848. Frederick Perkins came in 1857, boarded at the Bruce home, and with Orson Phelps sat on Mt. Marcy and named Skylight, Basin and Saddelback Mountains. Roswell Shurtleff came first to Keene Valley in 1868 and returned each year for the rest of his life, being, with A.H. Wyant, the first artists to have summer places here. Wyant built on the hillside east of the AuSable, Shurtleff on the west. Winslow Homer joined John Fitch and Shurtleff in Keene Valley for hunting, fishing, and painting. John Adams Parker was here by 1866, subsequently building. Robert Monior came in 1875 and by 1882 had a house that became a center for art students. Samuel Coleman arrived in the 1860's. Homer Martin (1836-1897), Sanford Gifford (1823-1880), and Arthur Parton (1842-1914) are but a few more of the recognized American artists who painted the AuSable lakes and mountain of Keene in the nineteenth century. In fact, the Heidelberg Museum of the Paletinate's salute to the American Bicentennial was a 1976 exhibit of work by the first German to the American scenes, a man named Kappel, and featured scenes around Beede's. John Marin brought Keene Valley art into the twentieth century. Harold Weston, son of S. Burns Weston, wintered alone at his AuSable Club studio 1920-21 to start his painting career, and gave us later life a good local history as well as art sampling in his autobiography Freedom in the Wilds (1971). Present day artists living or working in the town include Bruce Mitchell...
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Materials

Oil, Board

Hudson River Inlet, 1885 by American artist Frank Anderson (American: 1844-1891)
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Located in New York, NY
Hudson River Inlet, 1885 by Hudson River School artist Frank Anderson (1844-1891) is oil on canvas. The work measures 15.13 x 24.25 inches ...
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Located in New York, NY
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Located in Buffalo, NY
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Hudson River School paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Hudson River School paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add paintings created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, purple and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Ralph Albert Blakelock, Jane Bloodgood-Abrams, Jasper Francis Cropsey, and John Frederick Kensett. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Hudson River School paintings, so small editions measuring 4 inches across are also available. Prices for paintings made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $400 and tops out at $875,000, while the average work sells for $14,933.

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