Could I send you a photo of an old picture that we were told was in the Hudson Valley style but not signed? Hoping you could provide some guidance. Thanks

Thank you for your article and lovely images. They were a pleasure to view. We recently purchased an oil on board landscape by an artist named Marjorie V. Stevens. It was bought at an central New York state estate sale. The painting has the initials MVS on the ll, right of the initials is Mar.Stevens, and in the reverse in pencil is written Marjorie Stevens in the same hand as the signature in the front. It is a lovely painting measuring 10 3/4" x 17 1/4", framed in a 2 1/2" wide mohogany frame. Condition of both the painting and frame are very good. We are starting to research. Should anyone have any info about Marjorie V. Stevens we would appreciate a message. Thank you very much.

I just purchased a painting listed as Hudson River Valley, done in 1831 by M. Wood Smith. does anyone know this artist?
I am guessing it may be a woman, and the only woman I have found is a Matilda Wood Smith, born in 1804 and lived in Goshen, NY., but I don't know if she was an artist? Any info would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Ooopps. I answered the wrong comment. It was not Dr. Wieting but Rebekah Mosby who asked about an artist named Helen.

In response to Dr. Wieting's quest for a painter named Helen, I have the following:
Helen Knowlton 1832-1918
Helen Merriam b. 1844
Helen Nicolay 1866-1954

These women did paint landscapes in the White Mountains of NH

I have been researching Women Artists of the White Mountains (NH): 1840-1940 for 20 years and now have a list of 150 who are known to have painted White Mountain subjects. I am hopeful that my work wll eventually be printed and the work exhibited so the world will know the other HALF of the American art story.

WAS A CATALOGUE OF "THE GRAND WOMEN ARTISTS OF THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL" SHOW PUBLISHED? IS IT AVAILABLE? IF SO, HOW CAN ONE OBTAIN IT? HG

Finally this is being documented. i would love to write for your upcoming projects.

There are others not mentioned here, although I have no idea if their work has survived. Eliza, sister of Albert Bierstadt, was an artist in her own right. And Hudson River School artist William Haseltine, also of the Tenth Street Studios in NYC, was brought up in an artistic family in which his mother was an artist. David Delo, author of a forthcoming historical biography of Albert Bierstadt.

If one clicks on the box on the right labeled "Photo Gallery," one can see numerous beautiful examples of the artists' works.

The exhibit, "Remember the Ladies" is at the Thomas Cole House in Catskill, NY. Just google Thomas Cole House and you'll get all the info. As for artist Emily Cole, she was Thomas Cole's daughter, not Sarah's.

I am perplexed that only one photograph of an exhibited work was included in this online story. The internet is a medium designed for enriched content, but in a story about forgotten works of art, the magazine has forgotten to include images of the works displayed in the exhibit.

I was also surprised by the use of the word "little" to describe the exhibit, which belittles the exhibit and the story. Don't make judgments for readers; tell us how many paintings, sketches and drawings are displayed and let us judge for ourselves.

It's truly refreshing to find an article devoted to women artists (obviously a neglected subject for generations), and to 19th century aesthetics as well. I am biased, of course; I collect 19th century American paintings, and have a number of works by women, including several (Mellen, Woodward, Greatorex and Coman) mentioned or illustrated in this article. It is worth emphasizing, however, as a counterpoint to the sincere enthusiasm and energetic encouragement of most of the commentators above, that to this very day, women's art - works fully as vigorous, skilled, arresting and profound as that of their male counterparts - is still largely disdained by curators and collectors alike. Exhibits and articles like this one will, of course, help broaden the artistic vision of curators everywhere, but I wonder how long it will be before the marketplace accords women's art the monetary values its aesthetic merit deserves. Since I'm still collecting, I'm in no rush: paintings by women have been the greatest bargains I've ever encountered in the world of fine art trading. But the bias against women artists remains an observable, if inexplicable, fact.

It's still not clear to me which Smithsonian Museum is exhibiting this Hudson River School collection. Will someone point me in the right direction, please?

I bought a painting in Charleston about 1960 which the shop owner said was by a Hudson Valley School artist. It is signed "Andre Francois" and dated 1851 on the front of the canvas.

Donald Keyes of the Georgia Museum of Art ( Athens, Ga.) told me several years ago that Francois was born in Belgium and later came to the United States and worked with the Hudson Valley School. My painting is a portrait of a young girl looking over her back at the viewer ( this is what I found intriguing about the painting). I have been able to find very little on the Internet about Francois. One note said he had a painting in a public building in Upstate New York.

Could anyone tell me more about Andre Francois , or where to find information? Thank you in advance.

Marjorie Newton

My husband and I just (today) purchased a painting that appears to be from the Hudson River School. We can make out a few writings on the stretcher, including "Painted by Helen ....(can't read that part)" and underneath, "1892." I think the word "Cobbleskill" may also be included. The stretcher has penciled comments, also hard to read, that I think have to do with the purchaser. They read "Mrs. ... Whit(bread?)." 75, plus some initials. My guess is that the 75 was the price of the very lovely frame. I can provide photos of the painting and the writings on the frame. Does anyone know of a painter with the first name Helen who would have been working in 1892? Thanks so much.

Wonderful story and illustrations!!
It's about time.

Has anyone published a book of the paintings and lives of these woman? I find these paintings very exciting.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts should be a prime research base for this type of exhibition. If these painters are not already included in the NMWA, collaboration would be a tremendous way to augment the status of early American women painters so that we can continue to "Remember the Ladies" by making them known to subsequent generations.

Good art, better than today's, if Mellen's is a representative sample. Gretchen Rogers b. 1981 or 1881? HP

I am an independent art lecturer in the Long Island area I would be very excitied to develop a programme on the Ladies of the Hudson River School
I believe art lovers on Long Island would relish seeing the works of these Women Artists
Is there a catalogue of the exhibit that I can purchase? Where can I gather more information for a programme?

thank you

need more picture and less words.... interesting subject

What a great online article! I set out to look into the women of the Hudson School era. I have a lovely oil painting by my great grandmother who lived in that area during the last half of the 1800's. It was due to my intrigue to find out more about this artwork that I stumbled on this article and was even more intrigued to find work by Laura Woodward as that was my Great Grandmother's last name - perhaps a family member.

“Remember the Ladies” is an historic, beautiful exhibition and well worth viewing. The excellent article, “The Grand Women Artists of the Hudson River School” brings up a number of issues concerning nineteenth-century American women landscape artists and why they became forgotten. Additionally prompting obscurity was that the women themselves did not promote themselves on a wide scale. The trait of modesty was instilled in their upbringing. Young ladies were taught not to spout their own accomplishments lest they be despised. Yet another boulder in the way was that the media held a condescending attitude towards the women landscape painters and while some male colleagues taught and helped the “ladies,” others looked down upon them. Despite all of this, their powerful paintings remain striking and clearly not feminine. Indeed one Catskill painting by one of the “Grand Women”—Laura Woodward (signed L. Woodward) was later thought to be painted by a man.

Perennially searching for exotic locales to paint, Laura Woodward (1834-1926) hiked throughout Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, the White Mountains, the Green Mountains, the Adirondacks, the ocean cliffs of Maine, and traveled south to Florida in the nineteenth-century. She fell in love with Florida’s tropical beauty and braved alligators, bears, and panthers while painting in its jungle and swamp interiors (including the Everglades), and became Florida’s most important nineteenth-century women artist as well as one of its greatest publicists. Woodward was also the impetus that sparked the development of Palm Beach. I wrote the book about this extraordinary woman artist and am thrilled that “Remember the Ladies” is a success. All the “ladies” well deserve the accolades they receive. www.laurawoodwardartist.com/woodwardbiography.html

How inspiring it was to learn of this exhibition! As Dobrzynski observes, its curators “have set themselves the enormous goal of rewriting a chapter in American art history,” of “ensuring that these women become part of the American art narrative.” It will not be easy to accomplish that goal, however, given the state of today’s culture. Landscape painters working in the Hudson River tradition in recent years, for example, have been largely ignored by the artworld, which overwhelmingly favors so-called contemporary art. It remains to be seen if Siegel and Krieger can succeed in such an environment.

A similar laudable uphill effort to rewrite a chapter of American art history occurred in 2001. The focus then was the Boston School of painting. It featured two concurrent exhibitions that also remembered the ladies---“A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940,” at the Museum of Fine Art, and “A Woman’s Perspective: Founding and Early Women Members of the Guild of Boston Artists, 1914-1945,” at the Guild’s own galleries [ http://www.guildofbostonartists.org/history_women.htm ]. See ‘The Boston Painters: 1900-1930' by R.H. Ives Gammell (1893-1981) for further information. (Gammell, a painter and teacher in the Boston tradition, was instrumental in keeping it alive. His influence is still felt today among contemporary Classical Realist painters.)

Dobrzynski notes that the painters represented in “Remember the Ladies” are not mentioned in the fourth edition of ‘Women Artists: An Illustrated History’ (2004). A quick online check of the book’s index suggests that the women associated with the early years of the Guild of Boston Artists may have been overlooked as well. Among the missing are Gretchen Rogers (1981-1967) and Elizabeth Paxton (1877-1971), the wife of William McGregor Paxton (1869-1961), one of the preeminent painters of the Boston School.

Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts) - http://www.aristos.org