CHURCH, FREDERIC EDWIN

born May 4, 1826, Hartford, Conn., U.S. died April 7, 1900, near New York City American Romantic landscape painter who was one of the most prominent members of the Hudson River school. Church studied with the painter Thomas Cole at his home in Catskill, N.Y., and remained a close friend. Developing unusual technical dexterity, Church from the beginning sought for his subjects such marvels of nature as Niagara Falls, volcanoes in eruption, and icebergs. He was greatly influenced by the writings of Alexander Humboldt, the German naturalist; and in 1853, while he was in Ecuador, he stayed in the house where Humboldt had lived. He portrayed the beauties of the Andes and tropical forests with great skill. In the management of light, colour, and the natural phenomena of rainbow, mist, and sunset his renderings were plausible and effective. In their time these paintings received great admiration and sold for high pricescollectors in the United States and in Europe sought them eagerly. Enthusiasm for Church's works was rekindled in the late 20th century, when he was considered one of the foremost American landscape painters. Church's long-lost masterpiece Icebergs (1861) was rediscovered in 1979. In 1849 Church was made a member of the National Academy of Design. Among his other major works are Niagara (1857), Andes of Ecuador (1855), and Cotopaxi (1862). Church traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East, but after 1877 he was compelled to abandon painting because of crippling rheumatism in his hands. He died at Olana, his house on the Hudson River, now a museum.