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Catskill Creek by Jasper Francis Cropsey / American Art
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Catskill Creek

1850 Jasper Francis Cropsey Born: Rossville, New York 1823 Died: Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 1900 oil on canvas 18 1/2 x 27 1/4 in. (47.1 x 69.1 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase 1966.50 Smithsonian American Art Museum
3rd Floor, Luce Foundation Center



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Catskill Creek



“It . . . is a very wild and picturesque gorge; down it rushes the cauterskill creek, which when swollen by heavy rains is a furious stream, could you but see the great rocks that have twirled over and over, and the immense trunks of trees . . .” Letter from the artist to his wife, September 24, 1850, quoted in Myers, The Catskills, 1987


Jasper Francis Cropsey greatly admired the works of Thomas Cole, who was the first American painter to establish the country’s wilderness as an important subject for painting. In 1850, Cropsey stayed with Cole’s widow in the village of Catskill, where he visited the late artist’s studio and made several sketches of the landscape. (Myers, The Catskills, 1987) In this painting the windswept trees and dark tones of brown and orange evoke the aftermath of a passing storm.

For more information about this work visit the Luce Foundation Center.


Keywords

Landscape - mountain - Catskill Mountains

Landscape - New York

Landscape - river

Landscape - season - autumn

Landscape - weather - cloud

painting

paint - oil

fabric - canvas

About Jasper Francis Cropsey

Born: Rossville, New York 1823 Died: Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 1900

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Jasper Francis Cropsey

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