Falls of the Kaaterskill

Born in England, Thomas Cole emigrated to the then British colony of North America when he was 17 and took up a career as a painter, specializing in landscapes and portraits. From 1825 he lived in New York, where he soon gained a reputation as a landscape painter, particularly after a trip along the Hudson River, which he undertook to paint in a number of canvases. This was the start of the Hudson River School which Cole founded and which attracted other artists such as Durand and Church, who worked in a similar style. Cole’s generation initiated a truly American style of painting, which developed for the first time in the 19th century and which focused on landscape, genre painting and still-life.