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Twilight

1858

The only student of Thomas Cole, Frederic E. Church favored a detailed realism derived from the close study of nature. As the art critic Henry Tuckerman observed, the setting sun enabled Church to depict the sublime spectacle of nature:Few places are better adapted to study sunset than the hills behind Church's house [in Hudson, New York]; the river and the mountains are spread before his gaze under every aspect of cloud, sunshine, and starlight; and twilight there weaves her most pensive hues, while the most glowing tints of the western sky irradiate the far horizon. Church is deeply sensible of the inadequacy of art in the presence of nature. “I am appalled,”he says, in a recent letter now before me, “when I look at the magnificent scenery which encircles my clumsy studio, and then glance at the painted oil-cloth on my easel.”Henry Tuckerman, “Church,” in Book of the Artists, American Artist Life (New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1867)

Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900)
Title: Twilight
Date: 1858
Place of Creation: New York
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas mounted on hardboard
Dimensions: 23 7/8 x 35 7/8 in. (60.6 x 91.1 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd
Accession Number: 1993.35.6

[Harry Shaw Newman Gallery/The Old Print Shop, by May 1953];
O. W. June, New York, by 1960;
Lawrence A. Fleischman (1925–1997) and Barbara Greenberg Fleischman (b.1924), Detroit, 1960-1965;
[Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1965-1966];
John D. Rockefeller 3rd (1906-1978) and Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (1909-1992), New York, 1966-1993;
Gift to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1993.
Indianapolis, John Herron Art Museum, January 8–February 5, 1961, "Romantic America," exh. cat. by Curtis G. Coley, cat. no. 8.
Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, April 10–May 6, 1962," American Paintings and Drawings from Michigan Collections," cat. no. 55, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman.
Tucson, University of Arizona Gallery, February 1–March 14, 1964, "American Painting, 1765-1963: Selections from the Lawrence A. and Barbara Fleischman Collection of American Art," exh. cat. by E. P. Richardson and William E. Steadman, Jr., cat. no. 17.
New York, Kennedy Galleries, Fall? 1966, "Past and Present: Two Hundred Years of American Painting. Part One: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." [1]
San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (M. H. de Young Memorial Museum), April 17–July 31, 1976; New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, September 16–November 7, 1976. "American Art: An Exhibition from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd," cat. by E. P. Richardson. Cat. no. 45.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, February 10–June 15, 1980, "American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875," cat. ed. by John Wilmerding, 16, fig. 5.
San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (M. H. deYoung Memorial Museum), March 7–September 13, 1987, "Director's Choice: Looking back to the Future," no cat.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, October 8, 1989–January 28, 1990, "Frederic Edwin Church," cat. by Franklin Kelly et al, cat. no. 31, pp. 53, 73-74, n.98, 162-163, 202, repr. 91, 33 (detail).
San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (M. H. de Young Memorial Museum), June 25–November 13, 1994, "The Rockefeller Collection of American Art at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco," cat. by Marc Simpson with the assistance of Patricia Junker, cat. no. 51, pp. 141-143, repr. p. 142 (color).
Mobile, Alabama, Gulf Coast Exploreum, July 2, 2002–January 5, 2003; Wilmington, Delaware, Winterthur Museum Garden and Library, October 11, 2003–February 1, 2004; Charleston, West Virginia, Charles M. Avampato Museum, February 28–May 30, 2004; Puebla Mexico, Museo Amparo, September 24, 2004–February 28, 2005. "American Accents: Visual Culture as History" [Spanish titled used in Mexico] Acentos Americanos: Cultura Visual Como Historia. Obras Maestras de Los Museos de Bellas Artes de San Francisco," cat. by Daniell Cornell, cat. no. 19, pp. 74-76, 89, 111n130, 117, repr. p. [75] (color).
[1] In The Kennedy Quarterly 6, no. 1, October 1966, repr. p. 136 as Twilight in the Wilderness. [2] Exhibition organized by FAMSF but not shown there.
American Painting, 1765–1963, Selections from the Lawrence A. and Barbara Fleischman collection of American Art, exh. cat. (Tuscon: University of Arizona, 1964), p. 30, repr., p. 57, cat. no. 17.Kennedy Quarterly 6 (October, 1966): p. 142.
Taylor, Joshua "A personal and distinctive collection of American art makes its debut," Smithsonian (April, 1976): pp. 36-37.
Huntington, David, "Frederic Edwin Church, 1826-1900: Painter of the Adamic New World Myth," Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1960; 70-71, appendix, no. 42.American Paintings and Drawings from Michigan Collections, exh. cat., (Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1962), p. 16, repr., p. 7, cat. no. 55.Richardson, E.P., American Art: A Narrative and Critical Catalogue by E.P. Richardson, exh. cat., (San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1976), p. 116, cat. no. 45, repr. p. 117.
Kelly, Franklin, "Frederic Edwin Church and the North American Landscape, 1845-60," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 1985; pp. 223-224, 265, n.27; 448, fig.39.
___________. Frederic Edwin Church and the National Landscape, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988); pp. 85-86, 153-154, n. 27, repr. 85.___________, with Stephen Jay Gould, James Anthony Ryan, and Debora Rindge, Frederic Edwin Church, exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1989), p. 53, p. 91, repr., p. 72, nn. 98, p. 162–163, p. 202, cat. no. 31.
Baker, Kenneth, "Historic Gift to the de Young," San Francisco Chronicle, January 14,1993: D3.
Bonetti, David, "De Young Museum gets major Rockefeller donation," San Francisco Examiner, January 14, 1993.
Snow, Shauna, "Art: Rockefeller Gift," Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1993.
Simpson, Marc, "`A Source of Pleasure and Satisfaction': The American Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd," USArt: 1993, (San Francisco: Caskey-Lees, 1993); pp. 14, repr. 12, fig. 4.
Carr, Gerald L, Frederic Edwin Church: Catalogue Raisonné of Works of Art at Olana State Historic Site, Vol. 1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); pp. 229, 253, repr. 230, fig. 70.Cornell, Daniell, Visual Culture as History: American Accents, Masterworks from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, exh. cat. (San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2002), p. 74, cat. no. 19, p. 75, repr. color, p.76. p. 111, nn. 130, p. 117.
Burgard, Timothy Anglin, Daniell Cornell, Isabel Breskin, et al., Masterworks of American Painting at the de Young, (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2005), cat. no. 28, pp. 105–109, 489–490, repr. 106, pl. 28 (color).

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