Hudson River Painters - An artistic landscape fraternity

The Hudson River School was America's first true artistic fraternity. Dating from the 1820s, the fraternity was a loosely organized group of painters who took as their subject the unique naturalness of the American continent. The men and women artists starting painting the Hudson River region in New York, but eventually extended their vistas to California in the 1870s.

It was a time of momentous social, political and economic change in American history and the paintings of the Hudson River School spoke to both a great hopefulness and a celebration of the primeval American landscape, and eventually the sorrow at its passing.  Join John Cilio, a member of the Organization of American Historians, the Association for the Study of Connecticut History and our storyteller for an illustrated presentation of the people, places and symbolism of the fraternity of painters who were not afraid to mix realism with fantasy on the canvas to create the images of America the Beautiful.