Tornado in an American Forest
1831
Artist, American, 1801 - 1848

Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 117.79 × 164.15 cm (46 3/8 × 64 5/8 in.)
framed: 151.13 × 198.12 × 13.34 cm (59 1/2 × 78 × 5 1/4 in.) -
Accession
2014.136.117
More About this Artwork

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Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The artist [1801-1848]; his estate, until 1857;[1] Robert M. Olyphant [1824-1918], New York, by 1867;[2] (his sale, by Robert Somerville at Chickering Hall, New York, 18-19 December 1877, 1st day, no. 64, as The Hurricane);purchased through (Samuel P. Avery, New York) by Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington;[3] acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] According to a receipt of sale signed by Maria Cole in the collection of miscellaneous Thomas Cole papers at the Detroit Institute of Art. The receipt reads: "Rec'd Catskill Jan. 10, 1857 of Mr. F. E. Church seven hundred dollars in full for Picture 'Tornado in an American Forest' sold to Mess. Olyphant & Son. Maria Cole." Cole's only pupil, Frederic E. Church, apparently tried to sell the painting for Cole's widow. The Crayon, 3 January 1855, reported that the picture was in Church's studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building in 1855.
[2] The painting was published as being in the Olyphant collection by Henry Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, New York, 1867: 40.
[3] According to the Register of Paintings Belonging to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1869-1946, the painting was received from Avery on 26 December 1877 (Series 1, Box: 135, Volume: 1. Corcoran Gallery of Art and Corcoran College of Art + Design, Corcoran Gallery of Art registrar's office records, COR0005.1-RG. Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University; digitized online and copy in NGA curatorial files). That he was acting as agent for the Corcoran Gallery at the Olyphant sale is suggested by an annotated copy of the auction catalogue in which the buyer of the painting is listed as the Corcoran. (Catalogue, Mr. Robert M. Olyphant's collection of paintings by American artists, New York: Somerville Art Gallery, 1877, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson.) The Corcoran register lists six paintings from the Olyphant sale received from Avery.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1831
Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street Gallery, London, Spring 1831.
1833
Possibly Eighth Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 8 May - 6 July 1833, no. 49, as A Tornado in the Wilderness.[1]
1865
Artists' Fund Society of New York, Sixth Annual Exhibition at the National Academy of Design, National Academy of Design, New York, 1865, no. 210, as The Storm.
1876
Centennial Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Selected from the Private Art Galleries, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1876, no. 241.
1893
Exhibition of American Retrospective Art, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, no. 2810, as The Tornado.
1916
Extended loan for use by The Louise Home, National Cathedral School for Girls, Washington, 18 December 1916 - 3 December 1934.
1940
Survey of American Paintings, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 24 October - 15 December 1940, no. 106, as Tornado.
1941
The Works of Thomas Cole, 1801-1848, Albany Institute of History and Art, 1 November - 15 December 1941, unnumbered checklist, as The Tornado.
1949
Thomas Cole: One Hundred Years Later, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1948-1949, no. 25, repro., as The Tornado.
1963
The Romantic Century, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 22 June - 9 September 1963.
1965
Thomas Cole: Paintings by an American Romanticist, Baltimore Museum of Art, 26 January - 28 February 1965, no. 13, as The Tornado.
1968
Jasper F. Cropsey, 1823-1900: A Retrospective View of America's Painter of Autumn, J. Millard Tawes Fine Arts Center, University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, 2 February - 3 March 1968, repro., as Tornado.
1969
Thomas Cole, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica; Albany Institute of History and Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1969, no. 28, repro., as Tornado.[2]
1971
The Beckoning Land, Nature and the American Artist: a Selection of Nineteenth Century Paintings, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 17 April - 13 June 1971, no. 14, repro., as Tornado.
Wilderness, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 9 October - 14 November 1971, no. 72, as Tornado (organized by the National Endowment for the Arts).
1978
The American Landscape Tradition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 31 January - 31 August 1978, unpublished checklist.
1979
Salvator Rosa in America, Wellesley College Art Museum, 20 April - 5 June 1979, no. 79, repro., as Tornado.
1980
La Pintura de los Estados Unidos de Museos de la Ciudad de Washington, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, 15 November 1980 - 6 January 1981, unnumbered catalogue, repro., as Tornado.
1994
Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, National Museum of American Art, Washington; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; New-York Historical Society, 1994-1995, unnumbered checklist, as A Tornado in the Wilderness.
Bibliography
2011
Cash, Sarah, ed. Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Washington, 2011: 30, 292, repro.
Inscriptions
lower center, last digit illegible: T. Cole / 183[?]
Wikidata ID
Q46627014