CROSS POLLINATION
HEADE, COLE, CHURCH & OUR CONTEMPORARY MOMENT
June 12-October 31, 2021
An exhibition presented jointly at the Thomas Cole Site in Catskill and Frederic Church’s Olana in Hudson in New York’s Hudson River Skywalk Region
Exhibition Overview
Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church and our Contemporary Moment is a national collaborative exhibition exploring the theme of cross pollination in art and the environment from the 19th century to today. The project stems from the artist Martin Johnson Heade’s 19th-century series of hummingbird and habitat paintings, The Gems Of Brazil, and their unique relationship to the epic landscapes of Hudson River School artists Thomas Cole And Frederic Church, as well as their continued significance to major contemporary artists working today.
For the first time in over two decades, 16 paintings from the influential series of hummingbirds and habitats, The Gems of Brazil (1863-64), by Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) are on tour in New York for public audiences. The project explores interconnections in art and science, between artists, and across the 19th and 21st centuries. Paintings, sketches, sculpture and natural history specimens are displayed in provocative juxtapositions within the historic spaces.
The artists featured in the exhibition are Martin Johnson Heade, Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Emily Cole, Isabel Charlotte Church, Rachel Berwick, Nick Cave, Mark Dion, Richard Estes, Juan Fontanive, Jeffrey Gibson, Paula Hayes, Patrick Jacobs, Maya Lin, Flora C. Mace, Vik Muniz, Portia Munson, Lisa Sanditz, Sayler/Morris, Dana Sherwood, Jean Shin, Rachel Sussman, and Jeff Whetstone.
The exhibition was created by The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. The exhibition tour is organized by Crystal Bridges. The traveling exhibition includes the following venues: The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, FL, Reynolda House Museum of American Art in WinstonSalem, NC, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR.
Accompanied by a print publication.
Artist Audio Guide
Listen to contemporary artists speak about their work and inspiration in the Artist Audio Guide.
“Cross Pollination, a collaborative exhibition that spans institutions and centuries, to put artists in conversation with each other on the topic of ecology—and hummingbirds.” — Hyperallergic
“Right now there is a powerful, highly ambitious, and deeply relevant art show in New York that weaves together the histories of conservation and American art in a way most people haven’t seen before… on either side of the river are the historic homes of the famed Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and Frederic Church in New York’s Hudson River Skywalk Region.” — The Art Angle Podcast, Artnet News
“The true rigor of the 19th-century comparisons and discoveries makes ‘Cross Pollination’ an art historical win. But the vigor of the 21st century works, coming out of a hybridization of earthy and decorative impulses, gives it rich possibility.” — Times Union
"Cross Pollination is an enterprising endeavor that makes for a thrilling visit to the region, filled with insights running back and forth between past and present." — Tim Barringer, The Magazine Antiques
“Olana and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site are collaborating on a major national exhibition.” — WAMC, NPR
“A roundup of this year’s best outdoor sculpture exhibitions.” — Sculpture Magazine
"In Heade’s Amethyst Woodstar, the hummingbirds seem like flowers sprung from the tendrils of a spiraling vine. The dreamlike pattern is so mesmerizing that it’s easy to miss the nest hanging below the birds with two hungry chicks clamoring for food, or the distant mountain range obscured by clouds." — The New York Review of Books
“Building on this success is the second collaborative historical/contemporary art show between the two sites: Cross Pollination is the product of a partnership with Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, which has lent 16 prized images of hummingbirds … by Martin Johnson Heade for the occasion.” — The Brooklyn Rail
“Cross Pollination … is an exploration of systems of pollination in both nature and ecology, as well as a metaphor for the interplay of art and science, and relationships among artists across generations.” — National Trust for Historic Preservation
“A potent contribution to the relatively new notion that artists like Cole, Church and Heade were proto-environmentalists whose art brought them close to the natural world they loved and, as a consequence, made them frontline witnesses to its devastation.” — American Fine Art Magazine
Thomas Cole
National Historic Site
OLANA
State historic site
SELECT EXHIBITION OBJECTS
Cross Pollination is curated by Kate Menconeri, Curator & Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site; Julia B. Rosenbaum, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Bard College; former Director of Research and Publications at The Olana Partnership; William L. Coleman, Director of Collections & Exhibitions at The Olana Partnership; and Mindy N. Besaw, Curator, American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Cross Pollination was developed collaboratively between the partner museums and in conversations with leading American artists, scholars, scientists, and historians.
Support for this exhibition and its national tour is provided by Art Bridges.
Additional major support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art. The exhibition is supported in New York in part by The National Endowment for the Arts, Empire State Development’s I LOVE NEW YORK program under the Market NY initiative, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and the New York State Legislature; Robert Lehman Foundation; The Bank of Greene County Charitable Foundation; Greene County Legislature through the County Initiative Program of the Greene County Council on the Arts; The Olana Partnership’s Novak- Ferber Exhibitions Fund, the Kindred Spirits Society of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Charina Foundation, The Stainman Family Foundation, Anne Miller & Stuart Breslow, Kristin Gamble, and Deedee & Barrie Wigmore. Support for the catalogue is provided by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.
