Exhibition: Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire

Discover one of America’s leading painters of the mid-19th century

With his work seldom seen outside the USA, this exhibition establishes British-born Thomas Cole (1801–1848) as a major global figure in 19th-century landscape art.

Displaying Cole’s paintings alongside those of his contemporaries, including Turner and Constable, the exhibition brings to light the dialogue between American and European artists of the mid-19th century.

The exhibition includes Cole’s monumental cycle of paintings ‘The Course of Empire’ (1833–36, New York Historical Society), and provides a vivid new context for Cole’s ‘The Oxbow’ (1836, The Metropolitan Museum of Art); a founding masterpiece of American landscape painting, never previously shown in the UK.