In the early years of the 19th century, artists painted portraits and narratives of historical events. Thomas Cole (1801-1848) took a trip up the Hudson River to the Catskills in 1825 and later produced three paintings based on his sketches. Cole had recognized the wildness and the promise of the American landscape. His work inspired other artists who would come to be known as the Hudson River School. America discovered the beneficial aspects of nature through the paintings of the group and inspired movements to conserve it.

Louis Salerno became interested in American art in the 1970s and established Questroyal Fine Art in mid-1990s, with a specialization in the artists of the Hudson River School. The influence of the artists continues today. Salerno confesses, “I have learned to love nature from the paintings. It took the paintings to get me to understand and appreciate nature.”Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), Dutchess County, New York. Oil on canvas, 141⁄6 x 215⁄16 in., initialed lower right: ‘ABD’.

Questroyal’s major exhibition, The Historic Hudson River School: American Innovation, opens in their New York gallery March 11 and continues through April 3. The gallery notes that the exhibition features “nearly 100 paintings by our nation’s master 19th-century artists. Treasured in three centuries, these works by our nation’s master painters mark the inception of a uniquely American art. Including works by Bierstadt, Bricher, Church, Cole, Colman, Cropsey, Doughty, Gifford, Hart, Herzog, Johnson, Kensett, Moran, Richards, Silva, Sonntag, Whittredge, Wyant and many others.”Thomas Moran (1837-1926), Sunset, Amagansett, 1905. Oil on canvas, 30½ x 40½ in., monogrammed and dated lower right: ‘TMoran 1905’.

Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) is also featured in the exhibition. Durand had purchased one of Cole’s first Hudson River paintings and, after Cole, became the leader of the Hudson River School. Unlike his friend Cole, Durand espoused naturalism, the real versus the ideal. His painting Dutchess County, New York is a pastoral scene of man living in harmony with nature. Trees have been felled to build the cabin and to make space for planting. The fallen trees in the foreground are rotting back into the soil.Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Niagara Falls with Terrapin Tower. Oil on paper laid down on canvas, 201/8 x 28 in., monogrammed lower right: ‘ABierstadt’.

Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880), Study for “Morning in the Adirondacks, 1867”. Oil on canvas, 11¾ x 101/16 in., signed lower left: ‘SRGifford’.

Thomas Moran (1837-1926) was born in Bolton, Lancashire, where Thomas Cole had been born over a generation earlier. His family immigrated to Philadelphia in 1844 where he was introduced to American and British landscape paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He had his first solo exhibition of watercolors at the academy in 1856.

In 1871, he took the Hudson River School ideas of romanticism west when he joined the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories to record the landscapes of Yellowstone. His extraordinary watercolors and large-scale oils were instrumental in the establishment of Yellowstone as the nation’s first National Park in 1872.

He lived in the east and often traveled west to paint. Once he was asked to name two of the most beautiful places in the world. He is said to have replied, “Yosemite and East Hampton.” He and his wife, artist Mary Nimmo, summered in East Hampton before buying land there in 1883. They built a cottage and studio which was finished the following year. His painting, Sunset, Amagansett, 1905, is in the exhibition. Amagansett is a hamlet in East Hampton.John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872), Bash-Bish Falls, 1857. Oil on canvas, 34¼ x 27 in., monogrammed and dated lower left: ‘JF.K//‘57’.

William Hart (1823-1894), Early Sun, Lake George. Oil on canvas, 10½ x 17½ in., signed lower right: ‘W. HART’.

The biographer, Robert Allerton Parker (1888-1970), wrote that Moran’s “expression has passed into our very culture. Perhaps more than any other American painter of the latter half of the 19th century, Thomas Moran compelled the American people to appreciate the beauty of its own continent, to look upon its wonders through his eyes, and to save these resources of natural beauty.”

The Historic Hudson River School: American Innovation will be available to view in-person as well as virtually through the gallery website. —

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