Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

EMILY COLE: Ceramics, Flora & Contemporary Responses places the art of Emily Cole (1843-1913), daughter of Thomas Cole, into conversation with eight internationally-celebrated, 21st-century artists within the Cole family’s historic home and studio.

Emily Cole was an esteemed professional artist in her own right, who painted dynamic botanicals on porcelain and watercolors on paper. She exhibited and sold her art in New York City and the Hudson Valley, received critical acclaim, traveled internationally, studied at the National Academy of Design, and was a founding member in 1892 of the New York Society of Ceramic Arts, an organization that advocated for ceramics to be exhibited in museum galleries.

The exhibition will include the largest display of original painted porcelain and works on paper by Emily Cole ever shown since the 19th century. Her work will be presented alongside, and in conversation with, contemporary works that span ceramics, sculpture, installation, painting, and photography. The contemporary artists are Ann Agee, Jacqueline Bishop, Francesca DiMattio, Valerie Hegarty, Courtney M. Leonard, Jiha Moon, Michelle Sound, and Stephanie Syjuco. 

The exhibition’s curators are Kate Menconeri, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, Contemporary Art, and Fellowship at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Amanda Malmstrom, Associate Curator at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. The project was developed in conversation with the featured artists and the following advisors: Jenni Sorkin, PhD, Professor of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in contemporary art and material culture; Amy Meyers, PhD, former Director of the Yale Center for British Art, specializing in art and science in the transatlantic world; the artist Kiki Smith; Lisa Sanditz, artist and Bard College teaching faculty; and Nicole Hayes, practicing ceramics teacher and graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. 

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site preserves and interprets the home, and studios of Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, the formative 19th-century art movement of the United States. Cole’s profound influence on America’s cultural landscape and the historic context of his work inspires us to engage broad audiences through innovative educational programs that are relevant today.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

COURTNEY M. LEONARD

b. Shinnecock, 1980
lives and works in Northfield, Minnesota

More on Courtney M. Leonard

JACQUELINE BISHOP

b. 1971, Kingston, Jamaica
lives and works in New York, NY

More on Jacqueline Bishop