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Twilight in the Wilderness

1860

Frederic Edwin Church

(American, 1826-1900)

America, 19th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 124 x 185 x 13 cm (48 13/16 x 72 13/16 x 5 1/8 in.); Unframed: 101.6 x 162.6 cm (40 x 64 in.)

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1965.233

Location

206 American Landscape

Fun Fact

An image of this painting has a cameo in the Harrison Ford film Clear and Present Danger.

Description

In his New York studio, Church painted this spectacular view of a blazing sunset over wilderness near Mount Katahdin in Maine, which he had sketched during a visit nearly two years earlier. Although Church often extolled the grandeur of pristine American landscape in his work, this painting appears to have additional overtones. Created on the eve of the Civil War, the painting's subject can be interpreted as symbolically evoking the coming conflagration. Church's considerable technical skills and clever showmanship contributed to his fame as the premier artist of his generation. Rather than debut this painting in an annual exhibition with works by other artists as was the custom, Church instead exhibited it by itself at a prestigious art gallery. Coaxed by advance publicity and highly favorable press reviews, several hundred spectators flocked to admire it during its seven-week run.

Video

How Does Church Depict Nature?

The Dramatic Sunset

Why Did Church Hold his Own Exhibitions?

Preserving America's Natural Beauty, Then and Now

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signed and dated lower right: "F. E. CHURCH / -60-"

Provenance

1860-1864

William T. Walters [1820-1894], Baltimore, MD, consigned to Samuel Putnam Avery for sale at Henry H. Leeds and Co. ¹

1864

(Henry H. Leeds and Co., New York, NY, Feb. 12-13, 1864) ²

1864-1866

(Samuel Putnam Avery [1822-1904], New York, NY) ³

1866

(Leeds and Minor at Old Dusseldorf Gallery, New York, NY, March 9, 1866, no. 174, sold to John Taylor Johnston) ⁴

1866-1876

John Taylor Johnston [1820-1893], New York, NY

1876

(Chickering Hall, John Taylor Johnston sale, Dec. 19-22, 1876, sold to John Work Garrett?) ⁵

1876-probably 1884

John Work Garrett [1820-1884], Baltimore, MD, by descent to his daughter, Mary E. Garrett?

Probably 1884-at least 1902

Mary E. Garrett [1854-1909], Baltimore, MD, sold to Robert de Forest ⁶

After 1902-1931

Robert de Forest [1848-1931], Parkers Point, CT, by descent to his brother, Lockwood de Forest ⁷

1931-1932

Lockwood de Forest [1850-1932], Santa Barbara, CA, by descent to his son, Alfred Victor de Forest

1932-1945

Alfred Victor de Forest [1888-1945], Marlborough, NH, by descent to his son, Taber de Forest

1945-early 1960s

Taber de Forest, Maine, sold to David McCoy

Early 1960s

David McCoy, Lyme, CT, sold to Robert Weimann

1962 or 1963-1965

Robert Weimann, Ansonia, CT, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art

1965-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

¹Walters, a prominent collector and namesake of the Walters Art Museum, commissioned the painting from Church in 1860.

²Consigned to Samuel Putnam Avery by Walters, the painting seems to have been bought in by Avery at this sale and then put up for auction again in 1866.

³After likely buying in the painting at the 1864 auction, Avery, a close associate of Walters, offered it for sale again in 1866.

⁴This auction included “the entire collection of the foreign oil and water color paintings, consigned to Samuel P. Avery," ”to which will be added the celebrated picture by F.E. Church, Twilight in the Wilderness." As in the 1864 auction, here, too, Walters consigned the painting to Avery for sale.

⁵According to Emily de Forest, Johnston's daughter and Robert de Forest's wife, the painting was purchased at this sale by Mary Garrett. Lockwood de Forest, Robert's brother, however, maintains it was purchased by John Work Garrett and then descended to his daughter, Mary.

⁶Mary Garrett was a close friend of the de Forests.

⁷According to Robert's wife, Emily, he purchased the painting from Mary Garrett.

Provenance Citations

Marion de Forest, letter to James H. Dempsey, Jr., June 6, 1982, in CMA curatorial file.

William S. Talbot, letter to Kevin Avery, Oct. 27, 1986, in CMA curatorial file.

Harold Kirker, letter to Sherman Lee, July 10, 1969, in CMA curatorial file.

Lockwood de Forest, letter to Emily de Forest, Sept. 16, 1931, in CMA curatorial file.

Emily de Forest, letter to Lockwood de Forest, Sept. 10, 1931, in CMA curatorial file.

Taber de Forest, letter to William S. Talbot, Jan. 12, 1970, in CMA curatorial file.

James H. Dempsey, Jr., letter to Marion de Forest, June 14, 1982, in CMA curatorial file.

Harold Kirker, letter to William S. Talbot, Sept. 18, 1969, in CMA curatorial file.

Sander, Kathleen Waters. Mary Elizabeth Garrett: Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Franklin W. Kelly, letter to William S. Talbot, Oct. 21, 1982, in CMA curatorial file.

"Art Notes," The Round Table 3 (March 10, 1866): 151.

"Art Exhibitions and Sales,” The Nation 2 (March 15, 1866): 346.

Eleanor Harvey, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, April 8, 2013, in CMA curatorial file.

"Art Exhibitions and Sales," The Nation 2 (March 15, 1866): 346.

New York Herald (June 8, 1860): 10.

Franklin W. Kelly, letter to William S. Talbot, May 5, 1982, in CMA curatorial file.

Auction Sales,” New York Times (March 6, 1866): 6.

“Art Notes,” The Round Table 3 (March 10, 1866): 151.

"Mr. Church's Last Picture," New York Times (Jun. 7, 1860).

Citations

Cole, Mark. "New Spaces in the Cleveland Museum of Art." American Art 24, no. 2 (Summer 2010) Mentioned: p. 16; Reproduced: p. 16

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 185 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 185 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 229 archive.org

Carr, Gerald. "Frederic Edwin Church and Mexico." In Arte, Historia e Identidad en America: Visiones Comparativas, edited by Gustavo Curiel. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1994. Mentioned: p. 255

Keck, Michaela. Walking in the Wilderness: The Peripatetic Tradition in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Painting. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006. p. 160, fig. 3.28

Mitchell, Mark DeSaussure, and George Inness. George Inness in Italy. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2011. 21. Reproduced: 22, fig. 7

Raab, Jennifer. Frederic Church: The Art and Science of Detail. New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 2015. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 93, fig. 40

Sotheby's (Firm). American Paintings, Works on Paper and Sculpture: The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman, Volume Three. New York: Sotheby's, 2015. Reproduced: P. 68

Avery, Kevin J. Sanford R. Gifford in the Catskills. Catskill, N.Y.: Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 2017. Reproduced: p. 14, fig. 12

Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin. "Cole's Legacy." In Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauserand T. J. Barringer. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. Reproduced: p. 239, fig. 141

Christie' New York. Post-War and Contemporary Art; Afternoon Session. May 15, 2018.
Reproduced: p. 134

Exhibition history

Goupil's Gallery, New York, June 1860.

New York, Avery's Gallery, (1866). Also shown at Dusseldorf Gallery, New York, 1866. Both exhibitions held in connection with auction, according to The Round Table, 10 March 1866. (See reference above.)

New Haven, Connecticut, Yale College, Second Annual Exhibition of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, Founded as a Department of Yale College by the Late Augustus Russell Street of New Haven, Conn., (1870), no. 114, listed as the property of John T. Johnston.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Academy of Design, The New York Centennial Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Selected from the Private Art Galleries, (1876), no. 125, listed as being part of J. T. Johnston's collection.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paintings by Frederic E. Church, N. A., (28 May to 15 October1900), illustrated in catalogue as plate 6.

Baltimore, The Municipal Art Society of Baltimore, Art Loan Exhibition, (1902), no. 89, listed as the property of Miss Garrett.

Washington, D. C., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Frederic Edwin Church, (12 February to 13 March 1966), no. 44; E18/ C56 W319. Exhibition traveled to the Albany Institute of History and Art (30 March through 30 April 1966), and, without Twilight in the Wilderness, to M. Knoedler and Company, New York (1 June through 30 June 1966).

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Art of the United States: 1670-1966, (28 September to 27 November, 1966), no. 48, brief comments about the color in Twilight in the Wilderness by Lloyd Goodrich, p. 25, catalogue.

Washington, D. C., The National Endowment for the Arts with the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Wilderness, (9 October to 14 November 1971), no. 69.

Buffalo, New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776-1976, (6 March to 11 April 1976), no. 10. Exhibition traveled to the Detroit Institute of Arts (5 May through 13 June 1976), The Toledo Museum of Art (4 July through 15 August 1976), and the Cleveland Museum of Art, (8 September through 10 October 1976).

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art, American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875, (10 February through 15 June 1980), no. 204; includes the following remarks: in "Design and Measurement in Luminist Art", Lisa Andrus discusses the composition of and quality of light in Twilight in the Wilderness, p.36; Earl A. Powell's "Luminism and the American Sublime" describes Church's use of cadmium colors to achieve brilliant light in many of his paintings, including Twilight in the Wilderness; and Twilight's role in the development of the 19th century ideal of the sublime, p. 92; "Church and Luminism: Light for America's Elect" by David C. Huntington describes how Church's technique in Twilight in the Wilderness erases all evidence of the artist's touch, p. 170, illus. 167.

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760- 1910, (7 September through 13 November 1983), no. 39.

Also traveled to The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. (7 December 1983- 12 February 1984) and, without Twilight in the Wilderness, to Grand Palais, Paris (16 March- 11 June 1984).

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, (4 October 1987 through 3 January 1988), pp.45, 251-4.

Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie, Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, Bilder Aus des Neuen Welt: Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, (22 November 1988 through 5 February 1989), no. 15. Exhibition traveled to Kunsthaus Zurich, (3 March - 15 May 1989).

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art, Frederic Edwin Church, (8 October 1989 to 28 January 1990), no. 34, catalogue text by Franklin Kelly, pp. 58-59, 61-62, illus. p. 110, cat. 34.

Vienna, Osterreichischen Galerie Belvedere, America: Die Neue Welt in Bildern des 19 Jahrunderts, (17 March through 20 June 1999), no. 45.

London, The Tate Britain, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880, (21 February - 19 May 2002), no. 25; pp. 129-131, p. 55-6, illus. p. 115, 131; Exhibition traveled to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (17 June -25 August 2002) and Minneapolis Institute of Art (22 September- 17 November 2002).

The Cleveland Museum of Art (06/21/2005 - 09/11/2005); "CMA Highlights"

Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965).

Art of the United States: 1670-1966. Whitney Museum of American Art (organizer) (September 28-November 27, 1966).

Wilderness. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (co-organizer) (October 9-November 14, 1971).

American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (co-organizer) (February 10-June 15, 1980).

Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).

A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760 - 1910. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (organizer) (co-organizer) (September 7-November 13, 1983); Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (December 7, 1983-February 12, 1984).

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (co-organizer) (October 4, 1987-January 3, 1988).

Bilder Aus des Neuen Welt: Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (November 22, 1988-February 5, 1989); Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (co-organizer) (November 22, 1988-February 5, 1989); Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany (November 22, 1988-February 5, 1989); Kunsthaus Zürich (March 3-May 15, 1989).

Frederic Edwin Church. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (co-organizer) (October 8, 1989-January 28, 1990).

Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991).

America. The New World in 19th-century Painting America. Die Neue Welt in Bildern des 19. Jahrhunderts. Belvedere (organizer) (March 17-June 20, 1999).

The American Sublime. Tate Britain (organizer) (February 20-May 19, 2002); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Museum of American Art (June 17-August 25, 2002); Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN (September 22-November 17, 2002).

Maine Sublime. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2014-January 25, 2015).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Twilight in the Wilderness|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.233|author=Frederic Edwin Church|year=1860|access-date=19 September 2019|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Twilight in the Wilderness

Twilight in the Wilderness

Frederic Edwin Church

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