John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872)
View on the Hudson, 1865
Oil on canvas
28 x 45 inches
The Baltimore Museum of Art
Gift of Mrs. Paul H. Miller, BMA 1942.4
Photography By: Mitro Hood
John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872)
On the Thames, Near Windsor, 1868
Oil on canvas
22 1/4 x 34 inches
Collection of the Maryland State Archives
MSA SC4680-10-0056
Photographed by Edward Owen
David Johnson (1827-1908)
View from West Point, 1867
Oil on canvas, 36 ½ x 59 3/8 inches
Private collection, Garrison, New York
Robert Havell, Jr. (1793–1878)
A View of Poughkeepsie
Oil on paper, laid down on board
11 3/4 x 18 inches
Courtesy of Arader Galleries, New York
Robert Havell, Jr. (1793-1878)
West Point from Fort Putnam, 1848
Oil on canvas, 28 x 40 inches
Private Collection
Robert Havell, Jr. (1793-1878)
Hudson River North to Croton Point, 1851
Oil on canvas, 37 x 51 inches
Collection of the Ossining Historical Society Museum
From London to New York, The Panoramic River: the Hudson and the Thames shows new ways of seeing the two iconic rivers ─ the Hudson, America’s “first river” and England’s ancient Thames. In the late 18th century, British artists developed the large-scale panorama, all-encompassing bird’s-eye views of the rivers and their lands that made humans seem the center of the universe. Popular planetarium visions for the 19th century audience, they are the roots of today’s big screen immersive film experiences.
By the early 19th century, painters such as Robert Havell Jr., who emigrated from London to New York, exemplify the influx of English artists who influenced a shared Anglo-American panoramic vocabulary as well as the evolution of American landscape painting. Havell’s work, (who also created many of the landscapes for Audubon’s famous birds) includes panoramic publications and paintings of the Hudson River and the Thames like other artists in this exhibition such as Thomas Cole (Father of the Hudson River School), and noted artists Jasper Cropsey and John Kensett, who favored the chain of cities, suburbs, and countryside along these two rivers, where horizontal planes and historical associations gave form to both artistic and cultural expression.
The Panoramic River features major loans from more than two dozen museums, galleries, and private collections. Museums lending paintings include: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The New-York Historical Society; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Baltimore Museum of Art; Yale Center for British Art; The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College; Maryland State Archives; Morgan Library & Museum, Williams College Museum of Art; and Princeton University Art Museum.
The Panoramic River, organized by Hudson River Museum, is co-curated by Bartholomew Bland, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Laura Vookles, Chief Curator of Collections. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with additional essays by Pat Hardy, Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Museum of London and Geoff Snell, Doctoral Student, University of Sussex and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.
The exhibition and the accompanying catalogue have been made possible by a generous grant from the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, Inc.
Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, NY. 10701
Wed- Sun, 12-5 pm. Fridays, 12 to 8 pm (July 1 to Sept 7). Museum $5 adults, $3 seniors & youth 5-16. Children under 4, free. Members Free.
Exit 9 (Executive Blvd.) Saw Mill River Pkwy (north or south). Info & Dir: 914.963.4550;
