Hancock House Museum Displays Hudson River School Artists

The Hancock House in Ticonderoga, N.Y., is currently exhibiting "Hudson River School Artists: Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondacks," on view through July 31 in the Harmon Art Gallery.

Residents and summer visitors to the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York have an opportunity to view this beautiful region through the eyes of Nineteenth Century American painters. Featured artists include noted Hudson River School artists William Hart, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, Aaron Draper Shattuck, Edmund C. Coates, William Rickarby Miller and John Henry Hill.

"In 1835, Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole described Lake George as 'begemmed with isles of emerald, and curtained by green receding hills,'" said Stuart Cartwright, guest curator for the exhibit. "In the following years, Cole's students flocked to Adirondack lakes and captured a beauty that modern day visitors still recognize."

The exhibit brings together works that feature scenes of Lake George, Lake Champlain and the surrounding Adirondack Mountains. Black Mountain, Tongue Mountain, Sabbath Day Point, the Keene Valley, the Ausable River, Lake Champlain and Long Lake served as inspiration for these important American artists.

According to Cartwright, a longtime summer resident of Hague, an unprecedented number of fine works featuring Adirondack scenes have appeared on the New York and Boston art markets. This is due in some measure to this summer's exhibition "Painting Lake George" hosted by The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, N.Y.

"I urge anyone with a passion for the beauty of Lake George to take in that major exhibition before or after seeing our paintings in Ticonderoga. Curator Erin Budis Coe has assembled what amounts to a national treasure," he said.

The Hancock House is at the crossroads of Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the Eastern Adirondacks on Route 9N at the Liberty Monument circle. For information, 518-585-7868 or www.thehan cockhouse.org.