“The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there.”   – Henry David Thoreau, “The Maine Woods” Praised by his mentor Thomas...

Frederic Edwin Church, Sunset across the Hudson Valley, 1870. object number 1917-4-582-a Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s collection of over 2,000 oil sketches and graphite drawings by Frederic Church was mentioned recently in the New York Times in connection with the reopening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing. According to the Met’s Curator of...