Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum · Upper East Side
Frederic Church in Jamaica
Over 60 oil and graphite sketches from Church's 1865 trip to Jamaica, documenting plant life and landscapes, drawn from Cooper Hewitt's collection of the artist's work.
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Preview: written before the show opened
Church had just lost two young children to diphtheria when he and his wife, Isabel, went to Jamaica in April 1865. For five months he went out every day, on foot or on horseback, and drew what he found: tree ferns, thatch palms, a lizard, the Blue Mountains near Kingston, bamboo by moonlight.
More than 60 of those oil studies and pencil sketches are on view, from Cooper Hewitt's 2,000-plus Church sketches, the largest holding of his work anywhere. The curator says they have rarely, if ever, been shown. Some took moments and some took hours, and you can read his notes on the pencil ones. Around them sit period photographs, rare books, and the voices of Paul Bogle and George William Gordon, Black Jamaicans who took on the island's political tensions under British rule.
It marks 200 years since Church's birth. Museum admission covers it, under-18s are free, and it's pay what you wish from 5 to 6pm daily. The free Bloomberg Connects app has the curator's commentary.
Look for
Church's pencil notes
Look closely at the graphite sketches: Church annotated many of them with short notes the museum describes as both informative and poetic.
Period photographs of Jamaica
Reproductions of 1860s photographs, some collected by Church himself and some from the National Library of Jamaica, show the island he was drawing.
Good for
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Under-18s get in free. The show's story begins with the deaths of Church's two young children, which is worth knowing before you bring yours.
Also at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
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Image credits
8
- Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to NowCourtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
- Collection in Focus: Modern European CurrentsPhoto: Ariel Ione Williams, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Taryn Simon | Father Country I Do Love YouCourtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design MuseumEpicgenius, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumAjay Suresh, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Neue Galerie New YorkFrancesca.hyanna19 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Metropolitan Museum of ArtHugo Schneider, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- American Museum of Natural HistoryIngfbruno, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0