Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection
An extraordinary promised gift to the New-York Historical Society from philanthropists and art collectors Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld, the collection celebrates a multifaceted and dynamic New York from the 19th century into the present day.
In preparation for his landmark masterpiece, The Birds of America (1827-39), naturalist and painter John James Audubon executed a series of more than 435 watercolor paintings of life-size birds based on his direct observations in the wild. They are the jewel in the crown of New-York Historical's unmatched collection of Auduboniana.
American landscape paintings from New-York Historical's celebrated collection
The Hudson River School rose to eminence in New York during the first half of the 19th century, with landscape painter Thomas Cole as its inspirational leader. This loosely knit group of artists, together with like-minded poets and writers, forged a self-consciously “American” landscape vision and literary voice. Both were grounded in the exploration of the natural world as a resource for spiritual renewal and as an expression of cultural and national identity.
