The Voyage of the Icebergs
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
Frederic Church’s Arctic Masterpiece
Eleanor Jones Harvey; With contributions by Gerald L. Carr
Read this book online via the A&AePortal, our art and architectural history eBook platform. To learn more about how to access this book, please contact us.
View Inside
Format: ClothPrice: $27.50
Our shopping cart only supports Mozilla Firefox. Please ensure you're using that browser before attempting to purchase.
Twelve days after the onset of the American Civil War in April of 1861, Frederic Edwin Church, the most successful American landscape painter of his day, debuted his latest “Great Picture”—a painting titled The North. Despite favorable reviews, the painting failed to find a buyer. Faced with this unexpected setback, Church added a broken mast to the foreground and changed the work’s title to The Icebergs. He then shipped the painting to London, where it was finally sold to an English railroad magnate and subsequently disappeared from view for 116 years.
This beautiful book tells the fascinating story of The Icebergs and provides a detailed look at the cycle of fame, neglect, and resuscitation of both this masterwork and Church’s career. In 1979, The Icebergs sold at auction for $2.5 million, at the time the highest amount ever paid for an American painting. The sale coincided with an upswing in the popularity and acclaim accorded to American landscape painting, catalyzing the market for American art and contributing to a revival in the prestige of Church and the Hudson River School. Drawing on extensive interviews with many of the people involved with the painting’s rediscovery, sale, and eventual donation to the Dallas Museum of Art, the author considers the way marketing has defined The Icebergs.
This beautiful book tells the fascinating story of The Icebergs and provides a detailed look at the cycle of fame, neglect, and resuscitation of both this masterwork and Church’s career. In 1979, The Icebergs sold at auction for $2.5 million, at the time the highest amount ever paid for an American painting. The sale coincided with an upswing in the popularity and acclaim accorded to American landscape painting, catalyzing the market for American art and contributing to a revival in the prestige of Church and the Hudson River School. Drawing on extensive interviews with many of the people involved with the painting’s rediscovery, sale, and eventual donation to the Dallas Museum of Art, the author considers the way marketing has defined The Icebergs.
Distributed for the Dallas Museum of Art
Eleanor Jones Harvey is Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.
ISBN: 9780300095364
Publication Date: October 11, 2002
Publishing Partner: Distributed for the Dallas Museum of Art
Publication Date: October 11, 2002
Publishing Partner: Distributed for the Dallas Museum of Art
112 pages, 9 x 10
20 b/w + 50 color illus.
20 b/w + 50 color illus.
