The son of a wealthy Hartford businessman, Frederic E. Church received early artistic training from Benjamin H. Coe and Alexander H. Emmons. But far more important was the period, 1844-46, he spent in Catskill, New York, as a student of Thomas Cole. Church was the only pupil Cole ever accepted. Following this apprenticeship, Church went first to Hartford and then New York, where he took a studio in the Art-Union Building and registered for the 1846-47 term in the Academy's antique school. He spent the next several summers studying the landscape of Virginia, New York, New England, and Canada. Recognition came quickly; he sold a number of early paintings to the American Art-Union and was represented in every Academy annual from 1845 to 1857. Church was one of four Associates elected in 1848, and he advanced to Academician the following year. The others, John F. Kensett, Junius B. Stearns, and Edwin D. White, however, were from eight to sixteen years older than Church, and he remained the youngest Academician until 1859. He served on the Academy's Council in 1851-52 and was appointed a Visitor to the school for the following year.
Church's life was changed by an 1853 trip he made to South America with Cyrus W. Field. Two years later he began exhibiting tropical landscapes, and he continued producing this type of scene for most of his career. He went to Ecuador in 1857 with Louis R. Mignot, and it was this experience that resulted in his monumental Heart of the Andes (1859, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Church achieved fame by independently presenting his blockbuster pictures such as Heart of the Andes, as individual exhibitions. Subsequent trips to Labrador and the North Atlantic (1859) and Europe and the Middle East (1867-69) in turn yielded large-scale, crowd-attracting canvases.
Beginning in 1860, the year he wed Ohioan Isabel M. Carnes, Church began spending time at his Hudson, New York, estate, just across the river from the home of Thomas Cole where he had studied. In the wake of his trip to the Middle East, he started building a lavish, Middle Eastern-inspired home, Olana, atop a great hill on the property. He gradually withdrew from the New York art world and became less involved with the Academy. Gerald L. Carr has demonstrated how Church used early Academy annuals to develop his reputation (Kelly and Carr, 15). Yet after his success with exhibiting works individually, his contributions became more sporadic, ending in 1878. That year he was elected vice-president of the Academy, but he declined the office. Previously, his name had been mentioned as a candidate for president, but nothing came of the idea.
In later years, rheumatism made it difficult for him to paint, and when not at Olana, he sought relief for his condition in Mexico. Although he never taught in a formal art school, Church sometimes gave instruction and criticism to younger friends such as Howard R. Butler, Lockwood de Forest, Jervis McEntee, and William J. Stillman, all of whom became members of the Academy.
