Sarah Cole

Sarah Cole (1805-1857) was an American landscape painter and the sister of prominent American landscape painter Thomas Cole.[1] Many of Cole’s paintings are similar in subject and visuals to her brother’s. Very little is known of her life, and few of her works have survived or can be located today. The surviving works have been displayed in collections and museums over the years.

Though Cole spent most of her life in America, she was born in Lancashire, England. Her family moved to America in 1818 and settled in Steubenville a year later. Her parents, James and Mary Cole, had six other children aside from her and Thomas, all daughters.[1] Out of all the sisters, Sarah was the youngest.[2] Sarah and Thomas were very close and they may have worked together at some point at their father’s business, making wallpaper.[3] Throughout their lifetimes they spent a great deal of time together and supported each other in their artistic pursuits. Sarah would often sing or read to Thomas while he painted.[4]

In 1824, the family moved to Pittsburgh. The next year, they moved to New York City, where Sarah likely lived in for the rest of her life, despite often visiting her brother in Catskill, where he died in 1848 on February 11.[1]

It is not known when Sarah Cole began painting, but she only publicly showed her paintings after the death of Thomas in 1848.[1] The National Academy of Design in New York City displayed her work from 1848 to 1852, and her works also appeared in the American Art-Union and the Maryland Historical Society during her lifetime.[5] Two of Sarah Cole’s paintings that can be found today are on display in the Albany Institute of History and Art in Albany, New York. The paintings are A View of the Catskill Mountain House, a scene of the titular white house on a hill covered with fall foliage and a small seated figure on the ground looking up at it,[6] and Mount Aetna, a view of the mountain in the background with a landscape and people praying to a shrine of an icon[7].

On the back of the canvas of the Catskill Mountain House painting, it is written that it was copied from a painting by Thomas Cole.[1] They are both clearly similar to his design and technique; A View of the Catskill Mountain House is nearly identical to her brother’s painting of the same subject and Mount Aetna is not a direct copy but it is similar to her brother’s style.

Another copied work, outside of the Albany Institute of History and Art, 1848’s Ancient Column Near Syracuse, depicts a landscape with a Neoclassical theme, the image being of a person with some animals on a green field in front of ancient ruins.[5] The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in the Catskills also houses her paintings Duffield Church, English Landscape, and Landscape with Church.[5]

In addition to being a painter, she also made some etchings, but none of these works of art survive today. However, decades after her death, in 1888, New York’s Union League Club held an exhibition called “Women Etchers of America” that included some of her work, despite the exhibit having been otherwise entirely made up of current artists’ etchings.[5]

Cole had a daughter, Emily, who was also a painter.[8]

Sarah Cole died in 1857, spending her final days in Catskill, New York.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Myers, Kenneth (1987). The Catskills: Painters, Writers, and Tourists in the Mountains, 1820-1895. Yonkers, New York: The Hudson River Museum of Westchester. p. 112.
  2. ↑ Onofrio, Jan (1999). Pennsylvania Biographical Dictionary: Volume 1 A-K. St. Clair Shores, MI: Somerset Publishers, Inc. p. 241.
  3. 1 2 Haverstock, Meggitt, and Vance, Mary Sayre, Brian L., and Jeannette Mahoney (2000). Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press. p. 172.
  4. ↑ Prieto, Laura (2001). At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 60.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Siegel, Nancy (Thomas Cole Historical Society). "Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School," In Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School, by Nancy Siegel and Jennifer Krieger. Catskill, New York: Thomas Cole Historical Society. pp. 13–15. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ↑ "The Tourist's Gaze.". albanyinstitute.org. Albany Institute of History and Art. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  7. ↑ "European Sojourns.". albanyinstitute.org. Albany Institute of History and Art. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  8. ↑ Silver and Silverman, Raphael D. and Stephen M. (2015). The Catskills: Its History and How It Changed America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 80.


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