COLE’S THE OXBOW RETURNS TO NEW ENGLAND
IN MOUNT HOLYOKE EXHIBITION
CHANGING PROSPECTS: THE VIEW FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE
OPENS SEPTEMBER 3.

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – Visitors to New England this fall will have the opportunity to see a majority of the known depictions of Mount Holyoke, a 940-foot landmark that has been a cultural icon, tourist destination, and subject for artists and writers for almost two centuries, at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke, on display from September 3 through December 8, brings together in the shadow of the mountain approximately 100 images, including Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow, considered one of the most important American landscapes.

Coinciding with the exhibition are a number of related public programs, including:

A conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder, on September 27 at 5 PM. Kidder’s most recent book, Home Town, opens with a description of Northampton, Massachusetts, as seen from the summit.

The New England premier of Thomas Cole's, A Waking Dream, a play written and directed by Donald T. Sanders, at Rooke Theatre, Mount Holyoke College. The play, a biographical treatment of the life of Thomas Cole called “a dream from which we are sorry to wake up” by the New York Times, will be performed October 24-26 at 8 PM and October 26 and 27 at 2 PM.

A lecture by artist Alfred Leslie, who became one of the first contemporary artists to revisit the mountain in 1972, on October 10 at 7 PM.

A talk by James O’Gorman, an architectural historian at Wellesley College, on “Landscape, People, and Architecture of the New England Tobacco Fields” on November 7 at 7 PM.

With his 1836 painting, formally known as View from Mt. Holyoke, Northampton Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, Cole became one of the first artists to convey the dramatic prospect from the summit on canvas. “We are indeed privileged to present this magnificent painting from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection, a painting that is widely considered the most important American landscape,” said Marianne Doezema, director of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. This loan represents a rare opportunity for art patrons in New England to view this painting locally.

The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, one of the leading collegiate art museums in America, has recently undergone renovation and expansion, allowing the display of more of its comprehensive collection of approximately 13,000 objects. Primary strengths include Asian art, 19th- and 20th-century European and American paintings and sculpture, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art, Medieval sculpture, early Italian Renaissance paintings, and an extensive collection of prints, drawings, and photographs.

The museum is located on the campus of Mount Holyoke College, 15 miles east of Northampton and 10 miles south of Amherst in the beautiful Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. The museum, which is free and open to the public, is a short drive from the summit of Mount Holyoke. The Summit House, a popular mountaintop hotel in the 1800s that is now part of Skinner State Park, is open for tours and programs on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day through Columbus Day. The summit can be reached by car.