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Mountain Landscape
Artist	Frederic Edwin Church
Year	c. 1849
Medium	oil paint, canvas
Dimensions	34.6 cm (13.6 in) × 48.5 cm (19.1 in)
Location	Brauer Museum of Art
Accession No.	53.01.107
[edit on Wikidata]

Mountain Landscape is an 1849, early period painting by American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church of the Hudson River School of artists. The work depicts a landscape in the Northeastern United States based on Church's travels in Vermont. The painting was originally part of the Nickerson art collection but was later donated to Valparaiso University as part of the Sloan bequest in 1953. In 2024, the university proposed selling the painting as an asset to fund dormitory renovations, leading to a contentious debate about the ethics of deaccessioning artwork.

Background

Church was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, where he remained from 1826 to 1843. He moved to Catskill, New York, in 1844, to study art under Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, for two years. Cole preferred the style of creating compositions of both representational and imaginative landscapes, where the artist creates a fusion of what is both in the natural world and in the mind on the canvas. During this time, Church made sketches in Long Island and completed a painting in Catskill (The Catskill Creek, 1845). He first exhibited two works, Twilight among the Mountains and Hudson Scenery at the National Academy of Design in 1845.

Development

Church sketched throughout southern Vermont in 1849, completing more than ten paintings that year, including A Mountain Tempest, The Plague of Darkness, West Rock, New Haven, Above the Clouds at Sunrise, View in Pittsford, Vermont, New England Landscape (Evening after a Storm), The Harp of the Winds (A Passing Storm), Morning, Sunset, and Lower Falls, Rochester, as only a small selection. Mountain Landscape is believed to have been created back in the studio sometime between 1849 and 1850 based on Church's memories in Vermont. At one time, it was alternately titled Sunset, West Rock, New Haven, as it was thought to depict West Rock, New Haven, an idea which was later discounted.​

Description

The painting depicts a landscape in the Northeastern United States, thought to be Vermont, with mountains at sunset. In the middleground, a clearing can be seen, while in the foreground, a boat appears on the water.

Provenance

The painting was originally owned by Samuel M. Nickerson, president of the First National Bank of Chicago in the late 19th century. The Nickerson art collection, of which Mountain Landscape was a part, was gifted to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1900, where the painting remained for 50 years. Percy Sloan, the son of Hudson River School painter Junius R. Sloan, purchased the painting in 1950 from the Art Institute of Chicago, which he then donated with 400 other artworks to Valparaiso University in 1953.

Deaccessioning

Until 2024, the painting was held by the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University, but is currently undergoing deaccessioning to fund the renovation of two residence halls at the university, a decision that was protested by the faculty, students, and larger art community due to the ethical guidelines followed by museums when entering the deaccessioning process, which requires them to reinvest the proceeds from any art sale back into the museum's art collection.

References

1. ^ Kelly, Franklin; Gould, Stephen Jay; Ryan, James Anthony; Rindge, Deborah (1989). Frederic Edwin Church. National Gallery of Art: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 32-43; 158-160.ISBN 9780894681363. OCLC 20016290.
2. ^ Hertzlieb, Gregg (Fall/Winter 2009-2010). "Frederic Edwin Church: Mountain Landscape". Valparaiso Poetry Review. XI (1). Retrieved October 30, 2024.
3. ^ "Mountain Landscape, (painting)". Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
4. Kelly, Franklin; Carr, Gerald L., Church (1987). The Early Landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church, 1845-1854. Amon Carter Museum. pp. 99-100. ISBN 9780883600788. OCLC 1244732516.
5. "Samuel M. Nickerson". (1914). Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1907-1951). 8 (2): 19.
6. Boucher, Brian (September 4, 2024). "A Court Approves Valparaiso University's Controversial Plan to Sell Paintings From Brauer Museum Collection". Artnet. Retrieved October 30, 2024.

• Paintings by Frederic Edwin Church
• 1849 paintings
• Valparaiso University