Exhibition | M.A. in Art History Presents

**Julius Schrag** (German, 1864–1948)
*German Landscape (Deutsche Landschaft)*
1927
Oil on canvas
30 3/4 x 24 7/8 in. (78.1 x 63.2 cm)
Acquired by Columbia’s Deutsches Haus in 1929 (C00.0574)

The red roof of a cottage interrupts the otherwise lush green palette of this serene landscape, located in Oberbayern, a region in southeastern Germany. Schrag’s technique is characterized by thick, quick brushstrokes, contrasts in light, and an emphasis on water reflections that speak to his engagement with Impressionism. As with most of his twentieth-century oeuvre, it departs from his initial subjects of townscapes and domestic settings. German Landscape portrays nature in the service of people through man-made modifications, particularly the house, placed at the center of the composition and inhabiting the space between branches in order to create an idyllic vista. Beyond portraying a local scene, the painting asks the audience to consider whether an environment can retain its original form once human intervention has begun.

YoonJae Lee

**Barend Cornelis Koekkoek** (Dutch, 1803–1862)
*Winter Scene at a River*
1847
Oil on panel
22 3/4 x 28 3/4 in. (57.8 x 73.1 cm)
Acquired by Columbia before 1964, source undetermined (C00.0539)

This panoramic view of the Dutch countryside centers on a frozen river, framed at the left by tall oak trees and at the right by snow-topped farm cottages. Animating the scene are villagers engaged in recreation: skating, sledging, and fishing. Yet, human activity coexists with the natural world, as most of the panel is devoted to the sky at sunset. Particularly virtuosic is the treatment of light, as the orange glow of the sunlit clouds reflects on the frozen water. The brushwork is controlled and the precision of landscape details such as the oaks suggests painting en plein air. However, the figures are imaginary, deriving from seventeenth-century Dutch sources. The tranquil, leisurely atmosphere contrasts with the more imposing mountain and forest views, for which Koekkoek—the leading landscapist of Dutch Romanticism—is best known.

Sebastian Ihenacho

**Florine Stettheimer** (American, 1871–1944)
*The Fountain*
Circa 1912
Oil on canvas
20 x 27 1/8 in. (50.8 x 68.9 cm.)
The artist, then by descent to her sister Ettie Stettheimer; gift to Columbia in 1967 from the estate of Ettie Stettheimer (1967.17.008)

Painted during Stettheimer’s European travels in the early twentieth century, The Fountain places the viewer directly into the manicured grounds of an ornate residence. Blooming hedges, marble statues, and a white fence make visible the labors undertaken to control and aestheticize the land while the eponymous fountain erupts in the center. Stettheimer’s use of hot pinks, vivid greens, and bright whites makes the scene feel fantastical, especially when compared to the more naturalistic palette of her Landscape in an Italian Park (The Poplars), also on view. As one of the artist’s few forays into the landscape genre, this intimate and enigmatic canvas combines her penchant for simplified forms and bold colors that were inspired by contemporaries Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and Henri Matisse (1869–1954), whose work she saw in Europe at the time.

Audrey Steinkamp

**Florine Stettheimer** (American, 1871–1944)
*Landscape in an Italian Park (The Poplars)*
1909
Oil on canvas
32 1/4 x 50 in. (82 x 127 cm)
The artist, then by descent to her sister Ettie Stettheimer; gift to Columbia in 1967 from the estate of Ettie Stettheimer (1967.17.008)

Although Stettheimer is not typically considered a landscape painter, the sketchbooks she completed during her formative years in Europe contain numerous nature studies. For this painting, created in Munich, Stettheimer worked from an earlier plein air sketch of the Villa Borghese park in Rome, transforming the classical site into a dreamscape that includes a tiny faun at the edge of the amphitheater—a creature who would reappear in her later work. The elongated trees and emerald palette were inspired by the Art Nouveau aesthetic of Symbolist artists such as Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) and Franz von Stuck (1863–1928), revealing Stettheimer’s engagement with the European avant-garde. Introducing mythology, symbolism, and the world of theater in stylized forms, this early landscape established a foundation for the artist’s uniquely modern, mature style.

Sarah Vincent

**Fletcher Martin** (American, 1904–1979)
*Tree Workers*
1948
Tempera on board
16 3/8 x 15 1/2 in. (41.6 x 39.4 cm)
The artist, then by descent to his son Donovan Martin; Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock, NY, where acquired by Keith Sherman and Roy Goldberg; gift to Columbia in 2019 from Keith Sherman and Roy J. Goldberg (2019.12.001)

Tree Workers is a scene of dramatic transformation. Lumberjacks stand among felled trees during a large-scale logging operation. Martin uses expressive lines and vivid colors to create a circular composition that draws the viewer’s attention to each step of this process. As a member of the Regionalist movement, Martin rejected the abstraction of contemporary European art and sought to develop a uniquely American artistic tradition, turning to rural landscapes and manual laborers for inspiration. If the nineteenth-century view of the American landscape is representative of man’s effort to dominate nature, Tree Workers is the realization of that hope. No longer a diminutive spectator to wilderness, man now controls nature. Through labor, the landscape is transformed into a space for productivity and extraction, with devastating ecological consequences.

Asante Crews

**Carl Friedrich Lessing** (German, 1808–1880)
*Landscape with Figures in a Wagon*
1846
Oil on canvas
20 5/8 x 27 1/2 in. (52.2 x 70 cm)
The “O. Ames Estate” and the “Louis Joseph” collection (from an old label on a previous stretcher); Coleman Auction Galleries, New York, NY, by 1957; purchased at Coleman by Lola Szladits on September 16, 1957 for $35; gift to Columbia from the estate of Lola Szladits (1990.08.006).

Through vast plains and past rocky outcrops, a lone wagon makes its way along a winding path. The detailed trees and geological precision of the rocks attest to Carl Friedrich Lessing’s training in the naturalistic traditions of the Düsseldorf School, renowned for its accurate depictions of the German Rhineland. Yet the sky, with its foreboding clouds, also reveals Lessing’s ties to Romanticism and Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), whose landscapes are more contemplative in tone. Recent conservation efforts have revealed the lack of blue pigment to create the overcast sky, which only includes yellow, white, and gray hues. The distinctive gathering of clouds raises the question of whether the sky was an outcome of direct observation, or a more imaginative assemblage. Either way, the sky charges the picture with an ethereal atmosphere —a feature often praised by critics at the time.

Victoria Hazell

**Edward Delavan Nelson** (American, 1821–1871)
*Landscape with Cows*
1865
Oil on canvas
30 x 24 1/8 in. (76 x 61.1 cm)
Acquired by Columbia before 1964, source undetermined (C00.0663)

Edward Delavan Nelson was a Hudson River School artist who compiled studies of plant life and geological forms executed en plein air into detailed, but largely imagined, landscapes, painted upon returning to the studio. Despite becoming a successful businessman after graduating from Columbia College, Nelson was also a lifelong amateur painter who regularly traveled and corresponded with Asher Brown Durand (1796–1886). Landscape with Cows, made in a portrait format, is characteristic of Nelson’s few extant paintings: while the style is naturalistic, the pastoral subject matter shows reverence for the idea of an idyllic American landscape. This scene was likely inspired by Nelson’s trips with Durand to the Catskill Mountains, where they spent weeks sketching elements of the so-called wilderness, a space in fact humming with tourism and industry by the 1850s.

Annah Otis

**Marguerite Zorach** (American, 1887–1968)
*Maine Landscape*
1930s
Oil on canvas
30 3/16 x 40 in. (76.5 x 101.6 cm)
Gift of the artist (C00.0082)

In Maine Landscape, Zorach pays homage to the town of Robinhood, Maine, where she and her family spent their summer months as a reprieve from urban life in New York City. The painting, privileging earth tones and lush greens applied in self-assured brushstrokes, features hilly fields with cows, all flanked by large pine trees. The cows and fencing recede toward the water and rugged hills, creating a sense of depth. Zorach likely painted this work in her Robinhood home studio instead of en plein air. Here, the livestock plays a compositional role, while also pointing to an understanding of the land as resource. The painting, probably exhibited in the artist’s first solo exhibition at Knoedler Gallery in 1944, celebrates the beauty and vitality of the New England terrain.

Charlotte Childs

**Studio of, or in the style of, Gustave Courbet** (French, 1819–1877)
*Swiss Landscape*
1874
Oil on canvas
26 x 32 1/4 in. (65.8 x 82 cm)
First documented in 1960 in a sale at Palais Galliera, Paris; Galerie Robert Schmit, Paris, dates undetermined; acquired by Else Sackler, possibly from Galerie Robert Schmit; gift to Columbia in 1966 from Else Sackler (1966.01.002)

Applied with thick layers of oil paint, golden foliage looms over a cascading waterfall and obstructs our view into the wider mountainous landscape. This work, which dates to Courbet’s period of exile in Switzerland according to the inscription, reflects the artist’s tendency to capture close-up encounters with nature, as opposed to the vast, rolling hills and articulated planes of traditional landscapes like those of Church and Lessing on view nearby. Though Courbet claimed that he only painted what he could see—suggesting that the scene depicted here represents a real place—it is not possible to identify the location. The painting’s authorship is also questionable. During Courbet’s exile, counterfeits flooded the European art market, while the artist’s own production relied on little-understood collaborations with assistants, complicating current authentication efforts.

Kayla Kane

**Arthur Wesley Dow** (American 1857–1922)
Frame: **Charles Prendergast** (American, 1863–1948)
*Gay Head*
1917
Oil on canvas
30 5/16 x 40 1/4 in (77.5 x 102.3 cm)
Purchased from the artist by Columbia’s Women’s Faculty Club (C00.1370)

**Frederic Edwin Church** (American, 1826–1900)
*Cotopaxi*
1857
Oil on canvas mounted on board
13 1/2 x 21 1/4 in. (34.3 x 54 cm)
The artist; by descent to Mrs. Louis Church, the artist’s daughter-in-law, Hudson, NY; Mr. and Mrs. Marcus D. Richards, Winnetka, IL; Mr. George D. Richards Chicago, IL; Knoedler & Co., New York, NY; sold by Knoedler & Co. to Stuart P. Feld, New York, NY; acquired from Stuart Feld by his brother, Alan Feld; gift to Columbia in 2020 from Dr. Alan W. Feld and Mrs. Suzanne Coblentz Feld (2020.03.000)

From an elevated hillside covered with shrubs and other vegetation, the viewer is drawn into an expansive green plain morphing into mountains, behind which emerges the majestic volcano known as Cotopaxi. Church completed this small painting shortly after his second expedition to Ecuador in 1857, most likely for private display rather than exhibition purposes considering its small size. During his trip, he closely observed the mountains and land, as evidenced by a contemporaneous annotated pencil study where he used a numbering system to reference colors. Although Church witnessed the eruption of Sangay, also located in Ecuador, he missed that of Cotopaxi. Imagining for this painting the erupting volcano without human presence, his attention to detail and vibrant palette create a lively scene evoking raw natural beauty—an evocative, but embellished, landscape.

Shirley Wei