Thomas Cole
Papers
1821-1863

SC10635

View catalog record

Selected items from the Thomas Cole Collection (including the sketchbook) have been digitized.

Biographical Note:

Thomas Cole was born in Bolton-le-Moor, Lancashire, England, February 1, 1801. His father, a woolen manufacturer, moved the family to Philadelphia in 1819, where he opened a dry-goods shop while Thomas took up wood-engraving which he had already practiced at Liverpool. The family soon moved to Steubenville, Ohio, where the father set up a wallpaper factory; Thomas remained in Philadelphia.

Thomas rejoined his family in 1820, aiding his father in the manufacture of wallpaper. His chance meeting with an itinerant portrait painter named Stein resulted in his decision to become an artist. Stein taught him the rudiments of mixing color and lent him a treatise on the theory of color.

Since the wallpaper business was losing money, his father decided to move to Pittsburgh in 1823. Thomas again remained behind, painting, but soon joined his family to help in his father's newest venture: manufacturing floor coverings. He next spent some months in Philadelphia and then rejoined his family who had moved to New York City.

A New York merchant, George W. Bruen, who had admired some of Cole's studio paintings, paid his steamboat fare up the river to explore the Catskills. Cole took the three oil paintings that resulted from this trip to a frame shop on Broadway in New York City where they were seen by Col. John Trumbull, president of the American Academy of Fine Arts and, at the time, one of the most influential men in New York art circles. Trumbull introduced Cole's work to collectors and artists alike and from then on his fame spread and the Hudson River School of landscape painting was launched.

Over the next few years many weeks were spent in travel and the exploration of scenery in the Catskills and the White Mountains.

In 1826 Cole was invited to become a founder of the National Academy of Design.

In June 1829 he sailed for England, where he stayed for two years; he toured France and Italy before returning to New York in November 1832. In November 1836 Cole married Maria Bartow and settled at Catskill.

His two most famous works, "The Course of Empire" and "The Voyage of Life," were commissioned by Luman Reed and Samuel Ward, respectively, both of whom died before the works were completed.

Of "The Course of Empire," James Fenimore Cooper said it was "the work of the highest genius this country has ever produced." The series was exhibited in the fall of 1836 and then was stored until it was donated to the New-York Historical Society in 1858.

Cole again visited Europe in 1841-1842, the Adirondacks in 1846 and Niagara Falls in 1847.
A week after his 47th birthday he died of a virulent pneumonia.

Scope and Content Note:

The collection consists of eight boxes of manuscripts generated by or related to Thomas Cole, an artist, poet and founder of the Hudson River School style of landscape painting. The papers cover the period ca.1818-1964, with the bulk of the papers covering the years 1821-1848. They are divided into five series.

A majority of the material was collected by Cole's daughter and granddaughter, Mrs. Florence Cole Vincent, from whom the collection was received by the New York State Library in 1935.

The collection covers both his personal and public life.

Included are letters written by and to Cole, journals, notebooks, essay and lecture notes, verse and poetry, personal accounting records, and newspaper articles by and about Cole and his work. Also included are an 1827 sketchbook, miscellaneous sketches, exhibit registers and catalogs, and articles and catalogs from exhibits of his work after his death. The sketches include rough versions of typical Cole landscape paintings.

Cole made use of every scrap of paper for jotting down ideas for paintings, names of people who commissioned him to paint pictures, and ideas he encountered in his readings. Thus, the collection is a cornucopia of words and pictures.

Four finding aids created about 1935 facilitate access to the letters:

1. Two name indexes of the people with whom Cole corresponded divided into the following sections: people who wrote to Cole and people to whom Cole wrote. Each name is followed by the date(s) of the letter(s) in the collection.  These indexes are included at the end of this finding aid.
2. A two-page unpublished list available at the repository of painters mentioned in letters to Thomas Cole, and
3. A one-page unpublished list available at the repository of letters from other painters to Cole.

The collection has been microfilmed (MB/FM,759.197,C689,200-5109). In the microfilm copy, the folder list for Box 6 is:

• Folder 1, Bills, accounts, etc.;
• Folder 2, Notebooks, verse, etc.;
• Folder 3, Sketchbook;
• Folder 4, Sketches, and
• Folder 5, Exhibition catalogs.

The accompanying finding aid does not replicate the order in which items were microfilmed.

Series Description:

The Thomas Cole Papers are comprised of the following five series:

I. Correspondence, 1820-1855

II. Writings, 1818-1848

III. Sketches, exhibition catalogs and visitors' registers, calling cards

This series consists of an 1827 sketchbook (Vault), miscellaneous sketches, registers and catalogs from exhibits held throughout his career (Box 7), and articles and catalogs from exhibits of his work after his death. Included are four sketches on commerce (Commerce Meeting the Nations, Commerce Rising, Commerce Reigning and Commerce Sleeping). The sketch of Commerce Sleeping is on the back of a letter from William Firth, dated August 28, 1842.

IV. Personal finance papers

The personal finance papers (Box 6, Folders 11 and 12) cover his personal life, including receipts for clothes bought, and professional expenses, such as receipts from New York City newspapers in which Cole advertised paintings and exhibits.

V. Newspapers and newspaper clippings

Included in the newspaper clippings (Box 6) are critiques and reviews of exhibits, an article on a hike to Kaaterskill Falls in The Catskill Messenger written by Cole and stories related to his death.

Box and Folder List:

1935 Index to Letters from and to Thomas Cole

Letters from Thomas Cole

Letters to Thomas Cole and Others