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Hudson River School Art

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
Mountain Stream
By Henry Boese
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
In Mountain Stream, Henry Boese presents a majestic and serene vision of the American wilderness. A crisp, rushing stream flows through the heart of the composition, cascading over r...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Indian Encampment
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right in arrowhead: R.A. Blakelock
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Night Glow
Located in New York, NY
Ralph Albert Blakelock was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Portrait of Young Woman Sewing in a Rocking Chair
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
"Young Lady Sewing on Rocking Chair" by an 1860s American School artist is a charming watercolor painting that captures a traditionally domestic moment...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Hawley, Pennsylvania
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: RABlakelock
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique American Hudson River School Scalp Level Pennsylvania Landscape Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Impressive early American Hudson River School landscape oil painting by Jasper Holman Lawman (1825 - 1906). Framed. Oil on board. Signed. Image size, 10H by 16L.
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Summer at the Farm by James McDougal Hart (American, 1828-1901)
Located in New York, NY
"Summer at the Farm," by Hudson River School painter James McDougal Hart (American, 1833-1915) is oil on canvas and measures 14 x 24 inches. It is signed and dated by Hart at the low...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Rocky Seashore
By Lemuel D. Eldred
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
"Rocky Seascape" by Lemuel D. Eldred is a captivating painting that masterfully captures the raw beauty and power of the sea. Eldred, an accomplished 19th-century American marine art...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Portrait of Woman with Jewelry
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Richard Clague was sent to school in Geneva to study painting with Jean-Charles Ferdinand Humbert (1813-1881) where Richard developed a preference for landscape painting. Following his father's death in December, 1836, he received a substantial inheritance which allowed him to continue his studies. After completing his studies, he travelled to Morocco, Algiers and other destinations in the Middle East where he kept a sketchbook (now in the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana) and developed an interest in Oriental subject matter. Although he was largely trained in Europe, he settled in Louisiana, becoming part of the "Bayou School".He regularly painted with William Buck...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Under the Palisades, 1899
Located in New York, NY
Jasper Francis Cropsey paints a view out from the Palisades onto the Hudson River in his artwork entitled, “Under the Palisades.”
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Sandy Beach, Cohasset, 1860
Located in New York, NY
Winckworth Allan Gay paints a scenic coastal scene from an elevated perspective overlooking a wave-filled beach below in his work entitled, “Sandy Beach, Cohasset.”
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Homeward Bound
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: W Whittredge
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Marina Grande, Capri, with Figures
Located in New York, NY
Prominent Luminist Hudson River School painter.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Ka-Na-Pi-Ma, An Ottowa Chief Hand-Colored Lithograph
Located in Soquel, CA
KA-NA-PI-MA, AN OTTAWA CHIEF., from History of the Indian the Indian Tribes of North America, ca. 1842, hand-colored lithograph The lithograph by Charles Bird King depicts Ka-na-pi...
Category

1840s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Laid Paper, Lithograph

Chapel of the Madonna di Vitaleta, original realist Italian landscape
Located in Spring Lake, NJ
This original Hudson River School realist interpretation of the Chapel of the Madonna di Vitela, still standing in exceedingly picturesque Tuscany invites you into the heart of one ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Road-Side View (View in Wisconsin)
Located in New York, NY
Label on stretcher bar: No. 175. / AMERICAN ART-UNION. /Road-Side View / Painted by / Seth Eastman / Distributed December 20, 1850.
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Antique American Hudson River School Colosseum Italian Oil Painting Landscape
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American Hudson River School artist working in Italy. Oil on canvas. Framed nicely. No signature found.
Category

1860s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil Water Landscape with Mountains
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Alfred Thompson Bricher, an American artist celebrated for his exquisite marine and landscape paintings, created "Boats Sailing Between Mountains." This piece exemplifies Bricher’s m...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Paper, Oil

Summer Hills, Hunter Mountain
Located in New York, NY
Dated lower right: Sept. 67
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Fly Fising in a Mountain Stream
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Signed lower right. Albert Nemethy Jr.'s pastel paintings beautifully capture the essence of nature, showcasing his mastery of light, texture, and atmo...
Category

1990s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Synthetic Paper

Niagara Falls
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower left: R. Gignoux
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

A Summer Gathering
By Ambrose Andrews
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Signed lower right. An itinerant portrait, miniature, and landscape painter, Ambrose Andrews had a wide-ranging career geographically that saw him in many regions including New York (1829-31), Connecticut (1837), Texas (1837-1841) and Louisiana (1841-42). After 1844, he was active in St. Louis, New York City, Buffalo, New York, Vermont and Canada. He was born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and in 1824, attended the National Academy of Design. Andrews exhibited paintings at the Republic of Texas Capitol...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Indian Encampment
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower left in arrowhead: R. A. Blakelock
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

Sunset Along the Front Range, Colorado, 1900s Traditional Landscape Painting
Located in Denver, CO
This stunning, original signed landscape painting by Charles Partridge Adams (1858-1942) captures the breathtaking beauty of a Colorado sunset along the Front Range, near Denver. The...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor

“View of Mount Shasta, California”
Located in Southampton, NY
Beautiful original pastel on archival paper of Mount Shasta in Northern California by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas. Signed and dated 1874 lower right. Condition is excellent. Recently professionally matted and framed in a antique silver style gallery frame. Overall framed measurements are 27 by 36 inches. Under glass. Provenance: A Pennsylvania collector. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

John Ridge, A Cherokee Indian & Interpreter Lithograph with Applied Watercolor
Located in Soquel, CA
1838 John Ridge A Cherokee Indian and Interpreter Lithograph with Applied Watercolor The lithograph depicts John Ridge, a Cherokee interpreter, by Charles Bird King (American, 1785 - 1862), published 1838. Compared to other indian portraits in tribal regalia, King's rendering of John Ridge appears to be different. King portrayed John Ridge in Anglo-American clothing, sitting at a desk with a document and pen in hand—hinting at Ridge’s education and career as tribal leader and politician. King was known for his realistic and sensitive renderings of his sitters, and his ability to capture their physical features and attire with dignity and attention to detail. Condition: Good; tonal aging due to age; previous mat tonal aging marks Presented in new conservation mat Paper size: 19.75"H X 14"W Image size: 15"H x 10"W Mat size:24"H x 16"W John Ridge received his education at Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut and served as clerk of the Cherokee National Council. When King painted...
Category

1840s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Laid Paper, Lithograph

Niagara Falls 1870s Large Panoramic Oil Painting New York State And Ontario
Located in Sutton Poyntz, Dorset
Alexandre Le Bihan. French ( b.1839 - d.1924 ). Niagara Falls. Oil On Canvas. Signed Lower Left. Image size 23.2 inches x 49.2 inches ( 59cm x 125cm ). Frame size 28.9 inches x 55.1...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of African American Man Drinking titled "Evening Revelry"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This expressive painting by Francis William Edmunds offers a compelling glimpse into 19th-century American genre painting, a field in which Edmunds was a recognized master. Known for...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

“View of Mount Shasta, California”
Located in Southampton, NY
Original pastel on heavy card stock (made in Paris) by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas Brewerton. A view of Mount Shasta in Northern California. Signed lower left. Circa 1880. Condition is excellent. The artwork is housed in its original scroll decorated frame. Overall framed measurements are 33.25 by 19 inches. Provenance: A East Coast Florida estate. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

Wakechai (Crouching Eagle) A Saukie Chief Lithograph with Applied Watercolor
Located in Soquel, CA
1842 Wakechai (Crouching Eagle) A Saukie Indian Chief Lithograph with Applied Watercolor The lithograph depicts Wakechai, also known as Crouching Eagle, who was a member of the Sauk and Fox delegation. King renders Wakechai with exceptional detail. The Saukie Chief is adorned with fine accoutrements such as a white fur robe...
Category

1840s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Laid Paper, Lithograph

Tropical Landscape
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
Norton Bush (1834-1894) Tropical Landscape Oil on board, 8 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (22.2 x 29.8 cm) Signed lower left: N. Bush Provenance Private collection, New York; Private collection, Pennsylvania First noted for his portraits, marine views, and East Coast landscapes, Norton Bush became best known for his tropical views of Central and South America. He studied in New York City with the Hudson River school painter Jasper Cropsey and received criticism from another Hudson River school painter, Frederic Edwin Church. Like many who worked in the Hudson River school style, Bush also sought to inspire viewers with an expansive view of nature that dwarfed the relative influence and position of man. He first became interested in painting exotic...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil

New England Sunrise, 1910 by Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932)
Located in New York, NY
"New England Sunrise," 1910 by Hudson River School painter Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932) is oil on artists card-stock and measures 9.75 x 14 inches. The work is signed by DeForest and dated Sept. 17, 1910 at lower left. The work is framed in an elegant, period appropriate frame, and ready to hang. Lockwood de Forest was born in New York in 1850 to a prominent family. He grew up in Greenwich Village and on Long Island at the family summer estate in Cold Spring Harbor. As was customary for a cultivated family in the Gilded Age, the de Forests made frequent trips abroad. Excursions to the great museums, which were prominent on the de Forests agenda, deepened the young Lockwood's familiarity with European painting and sculpture. Though he had begun drawing and painting somewhat earlier, it was during a visit to Rome in 1868 that nineteen-year-old de Forest first began to study art seriously, taking painting lessons from the Italian landscapist Hermann David Salomon Corrodi (1844–1905). More importantly, on the same trip, Lockwood met one of America’s most celebrated painters, (and his maternal great- uncle by marriage) Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), who quickly became his mentor. DeForest accompanied Church on sketching trips around Italy and continued this practice when they both returned to America in 1869. Early on in his career, de Forest made a habit of recording the date and often the place of his oil sketches, as to create a visual diary of his travels. Lockwood’s profession as a landscape painter can be primarily attributed to Frederic E. Church and his belief in the young artist’s talent. De Forest often visited Church in the Hudson River community of Catskill where, in addition to sketching trips and afternoons of painting, he assisted with the architectural drawings and planning of Olana. In 1872, de Forest took a studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York. During these formative years de Forest counted among his friend’s artists such as Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823–80), George Henry Yewell (1830–1923), John Frederick Kensett (1816–72), Jervis McEntee (1828–91), and Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932). Over the next decade de Forest experienced success as a painter. He exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design in 1872, and made two more painting trips abroad, in 1875–76 and 1877–78, traveling to the major continental capitals but also the Middle East and North Africa. His trip to the Middle East and the library at Church’s home, Olana, established his interest in design during his mid-twenties. From about 1878 to 1902, landscape painting was overshadowed by his activities and preoccupation with East Indian architecture and décor, a style that became quite fashionable in late nineteenth century America. From 1879-1883, de Forest founded Associated Artists along with Louis Comfort Tiffany, Candace Wheeler...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

"A Quiet Afternoon" Enoch Wood Perry, Genre Scene Mother and Child Interior
By Enoch Wood Perry Jr.
Located in New York, NY
Enoch Wood Perry, Jr. (1831 - 1915) A Quiet Afternoon, 1876 Oil on canvas 15 1/4 x 21 inches Signed and dated lower right Born in 1831 in Boston, Enoch Wood Perry, Jr, is internati...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

THE WATERFALL - American School -Italian Landscape Oil on Canvas Painting
Located in Napoli, IT
THE WATERFALL - Oil on canvas cm. 55x70 by Paolo De Robertis, Italy 2002. The painting is inspired by the paintings of Thomas Hill, an American landscape painter belonging to the H...
Category

Early 2000s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

“Seaside Cliffs, California”
Located in Southampton, NY
Beautiful original pastel on archival card stock from Paris of the craggy seaside cliffs of California by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas Bremerton. Signed lower left. Circa 1880. Condition is excellent. Under glass. The artwork is housed in its original ornate scroll designed frame. Overall framed measurements are 33 by 19 inches. Provenance: A East Coast Florida estate. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Pastel, Archival Paper

A Garden in Montone, France
By George Hobbs
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
George Hobbs’ A Garden in Montone, France invites viewers into a serene moment of everyday beauty nestled in the heart of the French countryside. The composition features a narrow la...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Monument Valley Desert Landscape -- Navajo Hogan and Rug Loom
Located in Soquel, CA
Substantial and period mid-century landscape of Monument Valley, Arizona of Navajo Hogan and rug weaving loom by Ralph Holmes (American, 1876-1963). c.194...
Category

1940s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Trees and Fields, Print Club of Cleveland
Located in Berlin, MD
“Trees and Fields” lithograph commissioned for the Print Club of Cleveland by Peter Takal Peter Takal’s original lithograph “Trees and Fields” is an accomplished work of art created in 1957. This lithograph bears the stamp “The Print Club of Cleveland” on verso. This impression is signed by Takal in pencil. “Trees and Fields” is a fine example of the art created by the 20th century Romanian / German / American artist, Peter Takal. Peter Takal: Born in Romania in 1905, Peter Takal spent most of his youth in Berlin and was mainly self-taught. His first one-man exhibition took place in the Gurlitt Gallery, Berlin, in 1932. During the following seven years his art was frequently exhibited at galleries in Berlin, Munich, Paris and as well as Casablanca and Algiers. At the beginning of the Second World War (1939), Peter Takal came to the United States for an exhibition of his art at the Katherine Kuhe Gallery, Chicago. He decided to remain in the United States and became an American citizen in 1944. Living in New York, Peter Takal quickly established himself as a leading printmaker and a modern master of both lithography and drypoint engraving. One-man exhibitions of his art took place in New York City (1942), Chicago (1939 & 1941), Washington (1959) and Los Angeles (1966). International exhibitions of his art were held at the Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City (1959), the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (1960) and at the Kestner-Museum in Germany (1962). Museums to date that include Peter Takal's original prints in their collections are, the Chicago Art Institute, the Library of Congress, Washington, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the United States State Department, UCLA, the Berlin National Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Over the years, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Arkansas Arts Center have acquired a very extensive collection of Peter Takal's lithographs and drypoints. The artist died in 1995. The Print Club of Cleveland: The Print Club of Cleveland is a non-profit adjunct organization and the country's first museum-affiliated print club devoted to the promotion of art and printmaking as a fine art for printmakers and collectors alike. With its creation in 1919, it has helped to support the growth of the department of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Fine Arts and has also been a source of great enrichment for collectors of fine prints. During the organizations long history, the club has annually commissioned one original etching engraving, lithograph, woodcut and or other form of original graphic art from such fine American artists as John Taylor Arms, Suzanne Anker, Luigi Lucioni, Will Barnet, Mark Tobey, Lyonel Feininger, Henry George Keller, Louis Lozowick, Karl Schrag, David Jansheski, Deborah Remington, and Peter Takal, as well as from leading international artists such as Henri Matisse, Edmund Blampied, Jean-Emile Laboureur, Salvador Dali, Michael di Cerbo, Phyliss Sloane, Paolo Boni, Juvenal Sanso...
Category

Mid-20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Lithograph

High Peaks in the Adriondacks
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Charles Henry Chapin - American (1830 - 1889) “High Peaks of the Adirondacks” Note: Peaks include Mount Marcy, Haystack Mountain, Basin Mountain, as viewed from the Ausable Lake Area...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Autumn Stroll, 1885 by Hudson River School artist Thomas B. Craig (1849-1924)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Thomas B. Craig (1849-1924), "Autumn Stroll along the River Path" is oil on canvas and measures 20 x 16 inches. The...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

On the Beach at Long Branch - The Children's Hour
Located in Fairlawn, OH
On the Beach at Long Branch - The Children's Hour Wood engraving, 1874 Published in "Harper's Weekly" August 15, 1874 (p. 672) Image size: 9 1/4 x 13 5/8 inches Provenance: Wunderlic...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Woodcut

Oil Sunset titled "Virginia Sunset"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
William H. Langworthy (1836–1900) was an American painter known for his contributions to landscape and genre painting during the late 19th century. Little is known about Langworthy's...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Landscape of Children Playing Baseball titled "Baseball Beneath the Hills"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This charming Hudson River School study by Virginia Granbery captures a tender and distinctly American moment: children playing baseball in a sunlit clearing. Painted by one of the f...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Building the Allegheny Railroad, Pennsylvania" Alfred Wall, Scalp Level School
Located in New York, NY
Alfred S. Wall (American, 1825-1896) Untitled (Building the Railroad), 1859 Oil on canvas 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches Signed and dated lower left For Christmas, 2008, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featured Alfred Wall's painting, Old Saw Mill from the collection of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, PA. It was painted in 1851 in the town of Lilly, Pennsylvania in the Allegheny Mountains. The newspaper description stated that "though the saw mill is long gone, it still conveys all the warmth and coziness of this time of year. The article, written by Patricia Lowry, continued: At first glance, Alfred S. Wall's painting of a saw mill in snowy woods triggers nostalgia for the coziness of a log cabin, the smell of a wood-burning fire and the warming of chilled hands and feet beside it. But as sentimental as it seems on the surface, Mr. Wall's painting has a deeper and unexpected context. This is more than a painting about sled-riding children and early industry planted in the middle of virgin forest. Intended or not, this is a painting about conquering the great divide of the Allegheny Mountains. For the third consecutive year, the Post-Gazette features a winter-scene painting on the cover of the Christmas Day newspaper. This year's painting, Old Saw Mill, was selected by co-publisher and editor-in-chief John Robinson Block and executive editor David Shribman during a visit to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg. Mr. Wall, listed as a portrait painter in the 1850 census, was about 26 when he painted Old Saw Mill in 1851. The self-taught artist was born in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, to William and Lucy Wall, who'd emigrated from England around 1820. An artistic sensibility ran in the family: William was a sculptor who carved ornate tombstones here; Alfred's children, A. Bryan and Bessie, were landscape painters, as was Alfred's older brother, William Coventry Wall. For more than a century the Walls formed a prominent art dynasty in Pittsburgh, and Alfred, eventually a partner in the city's most prestigious art gallery, was well known as a painter, dealer and restorer. In Old Saw Mill, two wood cutters, each holding an axe, meet outside the mill; one points in the direction of the forest. On the other side of the stream, one child pulls another down the hillside on a sled. Just behind the hill's slope, the roof of a building appears, perhaps the home of the sawyer. The luminous, late afternoon light comes from the northwest, casting lengthening shadows on the snow under a darkening sky. The saw mill in "Old Saw Mill" likely would have been impossible to track down had Mr. Wall, presumably, not written on the back of the painting: "old saw mill near Jct. 4, Portage RR, Pa." "There was no Junction 4," said Mike Garcia, park ranger at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, about 90 miles east of Pittsburgh near Gallitzen, Cambria County. "But there was an Inclined Plane No. 4 at Lilly, and there was a saw mill there." In fact, there were at least six saw mills at Lilly over the years, said longtime resident Jim Salony, president of the Lilly-Washington Historical Society. But when he saw an image of the painting, Mr. Salony had no trouble coming up with a location. While there are no known photographs of the saw mill, he believes it stood near the intersection of Portage and Washington streets, next to Bear Rock Run. Mr. Salony, retired academic dean at Mount Aloysius College, didn't know exactly when the mill was torn down, but it's been gone since at least the late 1800s. He was pleased to learn of the painting, even though that knowledge came too late for inclusion in a new book about Lilly, The Spirit of a Community, for which he served as primary author and editor. It runs to more than 700 pages. For a little town -- population 869 last year -- Lilly has a lot of history. Nestled in a bowl on the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains about 3 miles south of Cresson, Lilly was first settled in 1806 by Joseph Meyer and his family, who named their 332-acre land patent Dundee. Although the Meyers had left by 1811, other settlers followed, but the community didn't flourish until the 1830s, when the Allegheny Portage Railroad began its 23-year-run through the town. For 200 years the Alleghenies had stood as an impediment to trade and travel between Pittsburgh and the east. A canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh would change that and compete with New York's Erie Canal. But a portage railroad would have to be built, on which teams of horses would lead the canal boats over the mountains. Engineer Sylvester Welch began his surveying from the small settlement at Lilly. The railroad would require 10 inclined planes, some quite steep, between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown. To build it, trees had to be cut along a 120-foot-wide right-of-way for 36 miles, along which track and engine houses had to be built. William Brown, who owned the saw mill on Bear Rock Run, built at least one of the engine houses at Inclined Plane No. 4; an 1834 contract also included fencing the dwelling lots at the head and foot of the plane. Lilly is located at what was the foot of Inclined Plane No. 4., giving the community one of its early informal names, Foot of Four. Named in 1883 for Richard Lilly, who'd completed the grist mill there, Lilly had another early name: Hemlock, so dubbed by a Portage Railroad traveler who smelled the bark stripped from the trees at the saw mill. Because there isn't another Allegheny Portage Railroad location like it, where a cut in the mountains opens into a bowl, Mr. Salony thinks it was Lilly that Charles Dickens wrote about following his trip from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Canal in late March 1842, describing what he saw after emerging from "the bottom of the cut": "It was very pretty while traveling, to look down into a valley full of light and softness, catching glimpses through the tree-tops of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, who we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homeward; families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a whirlwind." To get to Lilly, Mr. Wall may have taken the Pennsylvania Canal from his home in Allegheny City, now the North Side. He'd married young, at 21, to Sarah Carr in 1846, the same year he began his career as an artist. By 1880 they were living in a brick townhouse at 104 (later 814) Arch St., now demolished. Across the river in Pittsburgh he shared a studio at 67 Fourth Ave. with his brother William; they later moved to Burke's Building, today the city's oldest office building at 209-211 Fourth. But often they worked outdoors, sometimes as part of the colony of artists that grew up around painter George Hetzel beginning in the late 1860s at Scalp Level...
Category

1850s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Bathing at Long Branch-“Oh, Ain’t it Cold”
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Bathing at Long Branch-“Oh, Ain’t it Cold” Wood engraving, 1871 Signed in the block with the artist's initials "WH", see photo Published in: Every Saturday, Aug. 16, 1871 Condition: ...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Woodcut

Rainbow Over the Niagara Falls, NY
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
"Rainbow Over Niagara Falls, NY" by John Henry Hill is a breathtaking painting that beautifully captures the awe-inspiring grandeur of one of nature's most magnificent wonders. In th...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

"Couple in the Field, " James Brade Sword, Hunter on Farm Landscape
Located in New York, NY
James Brade Sword (1839 - 1915) Couple in the Field Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches Signed lower left After a childhood in Macao, China, James Brade Sword started out in life, after hi...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Marco Aurelio Tricca Pastoral Landscape Oil, 1929
Located in Astoria, NY
Marco Aurelio Tricca (American, 1880-1969), Pastoral Landscape Scene, Oil on Canvas mounted on Board, 1929, signed and dated to verso, carved wood frame. Image: 24" H x 30" W; frame:...
Category

Early 20th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

St. Valentine's Day -- The Old Story in All Lands
Located in Fairlawn, OH
St. Valentine's Day -- The Old Story in All Lands Wood engraving, 1868 Published in: Harper's Weekly, February 22, 1868 Titled and signed in the block Image size: 13 5/8 x 9 inches C...
Category

1860s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Engraving

Watercolor River Landscape titled "Enjoying Calm Waters"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
"Enjoying Calm Waters" is a captivating 19th-century American School watercolor landscape that epitomizes the beauty of a northern American scene. This exquisite piece showcases the ...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Pleasant Thoughts oil painting by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait
Located in Hudson, NY
This painting is listed in the W.H. Cadbury and H.F. Marsh book Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist in the Adirondacks, Newark, Delaware, 1986, no.59.36t. It is hand-signed "AF Tait...
Category

1850s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Antique 1860s Hudson River School Gilt Frame with Egg-and-Dart and Bead Molding
Located in Jacksonville, FL
A beautifully preserved example of mid-19th-century American frame craftsmanship, this giltwood frame from the 1860s reflects the classical elegance favored by the Hudson River Schoo...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Wood

View of South Pond, New York, 1879 by Ida H. Stebbins (American, b. 1851)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Ida H. Stebbins (b. 1851), "View of South Pond, New York," 1879 is oil on canvas, measures 23 x 33 1/2 inches, and is signed and dated 1879 at the lower left. The work is framed in an elegant Barbizon style frame and ready to hang. Ida H. Stebbins was born in January 1851 in Chelsea, Massachusetts to Mary and Isaac Stebbins, a teacher. Though scant records remain of Stebbins’ artistic training or career, various personal details of her life have been gleaned from contemporary newspapers and federal documents. By the time View of South Pond, New York was painted in 1879, she was living in Boston. Like many artists of her generation, Stebbins likely traveled throughout the Northeast region, gaining inspiration for her paintings from the landscape of New England and New York. Stebbins was likely visiting upstate New York when she painted this sweeping view of South Pond and the surrounding mountains near Long Lake in the Adirondacks just south of Deerland. Here, Stebbins captures the stunning vermillion, burnt orange and brown tones of the autumn landscape with the style and precise rendering often seen in paintings produced by the Hudson River School. Shortly after the completion of View of South Pond, New York, Stebbins married Frank H. Slack, a clerk, in her hometown of Chelsea on December 14, 1881 at the age of thirty. The couple moved to Hotel Comfort in Boston, where their son, Roland Stewart Slack was born on May 22, 1883. It seems likely that her husband died in the mid-1880s since on December 3, 1889, records indicate that Ida and Roland changed their last name back to her maiden name of Stebbins. Roland Stewart Stebbins (1883-1974) inherited his mother’s interest in art, studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Columbia University in New York, and the Art Students League of New York. He also studied at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière and the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Today, he is remembered for his marine and genre paintings and for his legacy as a respected professor of art education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. On January 1, 1890, Ida married her second husband, Timothy Jarvis, in Somerville, Massachusetts. Their daughter, Ida Hazel Jarvis, was born soon after in 1893. However, the child suffered paralysis from a brain tumor...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Cove at Dusk
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Signed and dated 1877. Mortimer Smith, a lesser-known yet skilled artist of the Hudson River School, captured the untamed beauty of the American landscape with remarkable depth. This painting presents a seacoast scene with a solitary fisherman, with his boat during the tide. The rugged cliffs frame the composition, their weathered surfaces telling the story of time and nature’s relentless forces. Sunlight filters through the mist, casting a halo glow in the sky, while waves crash against the shore in rhythmic motion. Smith’s brushwork conveys both the serenity and power of the natural world, inviting the viewer to step into the scene under nature's power and beauty. Although born in Jamestown, New York, Mortimer Smith would become well-known as a Detroit architect and artist by the end of the nineteenth century. Little is known of Smith's earlier years; however, scholars speculate that he studied in Oberlin and Sandusky, Ohio before moving to Detroit in 1855. There, the artist flourished and became famous for his crisp landscapes of local scenery, including his beloved winter scenes. In addition to his artistic career, Smith founded a successful architectural firm by the name of Smith, Hynchman and Grylls; Smith's reputation in the visual arts was often overshadowed by his draftsmanship as an architect. Nevertheless, he was a vital force in Detroit's arts community exhibiting his works in venues including the Detroit Art...
Category

1870s Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Autumn River with Punt in the Reeds by M.J. Walters (American, 1837-1883)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Mary Josephine Walters (1837-1883), "Autumn River with Punt in the Reeds" is oil on canvas and measures 13.25 x 23.75 inches. It is inscribed in...
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Oil River Landscape
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This 19th-century American School river landscape painting by an unknown artist embodies the essence of the era’s reverence for nature and the burgeoning national identity. These wor...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Fishing Along the Meder River at the edge of Vic, Spain
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
Samuel Coleman's "Fishing Along the Meder River at the Edge of Vic, Spain" is a captivating painting that beautifully captures both the charm of the riverside, and the beauty of the ...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Oil Landscape titled "A View of Irvington on Hudson"
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
"A View of Irvington on Hudson," a watercolor by John Henry Hill, captures the picturesque beauty of Irvington, a charming village nestled along the Hudson River. Hill, celebrated fo...
Category

Late 18th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

1860s American Gilt Frame Eli Wilner Historic Period Collection Hudson River
Located in Jacksonville, FL
An Exceptional Gilt Frame with Historic Provenance This 1860s American Hudson River School frame is a remarkable artifact in its own right, enriched by...
Category

Late 19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Wood

On the Hudson Looking North
Located in New York, NY
Signed and dated lower left: J. W. Hill / 1867; on verso: On The Hudson – Looking North
Category

19th Century Hudson River School Art

Materials

Watercolor, Pencil

Hudson River School art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Hudson River School art 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 art 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 art, so small editions measuring 2 inches across are also available. Prices for art 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 $13,267.

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