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    All images are Copyright Protected and the property of Jamie Williams Grossman. Paintings and photos displayed on this site may not be reprinted, copied, downloaded, displayed elsewhere, or used for any reason without her written permission.

    ------------------------------------- CUSTOMER REVIEWS

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    "Happy" with it is an understatement! My sister's husband said, "Wow, it's beautiful!" That's a lot of emotion coming from him! haha. And my adult daughter said, "OMG MOM, ITS GORGEOUS!". You have added to your fan club!

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    "I love the new painting! It's actually a little more golden and fluid than it looks in the pic and I love the movement; everything in my house is a little on the warm and yellow and gold side so it could hang pretty much anywhere. It's going to the framer shortly and I look forward to having it up :-)"

    "Jamie, it's lovely!!! Thank you so much for all the time and love you've put into it! You have no idea how much joy your work is bringing to me. I'm very grateful!"

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    ------------------------------------------ If you haven't seen the two-DVD set, "The Impressionists", you don't know what you're missing!

    the-impressionists.jpg


    I rented it from Netflix and absolutely loved it. It is an enactment of the lives of Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, and other Impressionist painters living at that time around Paris. Fascinating and eye-opening!





« The Base of Kaaterskill Falls
Late Morning at Kaaterskill Falls »

Cedar Grove, Home of Thomas Cole

On the first day of our trip, we visited the home of Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. The house was part of a 100+ acre fruit farm during his lifetime, owned by his wife’s family. She had to sell off most of their possessions after he passed away, so there are a lot of reproduction and period pieces in the house, but few that were actually there when Thomas Cole lived in the home.

tc1house400

Here is a picture I took of the famous view from the porch of his home. Unfortunately, it was heavily overcast that day, and the wonderful Catskill skyline that Cole had was obscured by cloud cover.

tc1view400

Adjacent to the house was a barn. Cole converted half the barn into his studio. The interior has great north light from a ground level window and one above. The walls inside it are brick and wood, so even with the cool north light, it has a warm, cozy feel. Many of his things were still there in the studio.

tc1studio400

Between the house and barn is an outhouse. You wouldn’t think it would warrant a picture, but I took one because it has the distinction of having three seats. Why, I can’t imagine.

tc1outhouse400

I didn’t get a chance to paint there, but they have a fabulous, small exhibit now of his plein air works in the house. Back then, the Hudson River School painters would go out into the field and do these small works to use as references for their huge paintings. One thing that struck me about the small paintings done as “field studies” is the large amount of detail incorporated into the work. I suppose that because they didn’t have small cameras to bring along, the relied only on these studies to produce their large paintings, and needed to include as much information as possible to bring back to the studio with them. They were certainly stunning, complete works in small formats. Here is an example:

cole11

Starting at Thomas Cole’s house was a wonderful start to our trip. It set the stage for all the locations to come. I felt inspired, setting out to visit the spots where he had painted. Having seen the exhibit of his reference paintings for the studio works, I decided that I would keep whatever paintings I did on this trip, and use them as my own references, alongside photos I took, to do studio and commission paintings.

Posted by Jamie on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 9:02 am.

3 Responses to “Cedar Grove, Home of Thomas Cole”

Hello, my name is Haley Schneider. I’m one of the five member’s of the Cole family that is still alive today. I’m 16 and Thomas’s, 5th great-granddaughter! Thank you for visiting our house! Please come again! 🙂
-Haley Schneider

Left by Haley Cole Schneider on March 29th, 2009

Haley, what an honor to have you stop in here and comment. Thank you! My husband and I just purchased a home down the road from Thomas Cole’s house, so I indeed will visit again!

Left by Jamie on March 29th, 2009

Hi Jamie! I’m an intern at Cedar Grove and came across your blog in a search for news articles on Thomas Cole and his property. I’m glad you enjoyed your visit and your pictures turned out beautifully! Thanks for the great write-up and we hope to see you here again soon.

Left by Dana on July 10th, 2009

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