Frederic Edwin Church 1826-1900
21 x 31.1 cm
Further images
Frederic Church often traveled great distances in search of new material for his art and headed to Labrador in 1859 to tap into the public’s fascination with polar exploration. Church had recently completed the monumental Heart of the Andes (1859; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) devoted South American imagery, and he looked to the Arctic for the subject of his next great picture. Church’s well-publicized journey resulted in close to one hundred field and studio sketches but it wasn’t until a year later that this material yielded The Icebergs (1861, Dallas Museum of Art). Icebergs and Wreck in Sunset, one of two oil sketches made in 1860, is regarded as “an important element in the ultimate version” by developing ideas for the final composition.[1] The sketch shows a stranded ship which took shape as a broken mast in the larger oil painting.
[1] Andrew Wilton and T.J. Barringer, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880 (London: Tate Britain, 2002), p. 224
Provenance
The artist;
[Edward Eberstadt and Sons, New York];
[Kennedy Galleries, New York];
Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland;
[Sale: Phillips de Pury & Co., New York, December 3, 2002, lot 18];
Blair Effron, New York;
Private collection, until the present
Exhibitions
Dallas Museum of Fine Art, Frederic Church’s “The Icebergs,” September 10-December 18, 1980Kennedy Galleries, New York, A Kennedy Galleries Selection of American Art for Public and Private Collectors, April 14-May 29, 1981, no. 8
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, Nineteenth-century American Landscape Painting: Selections from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, October 29, 1982-January 23, 1983, no. 9
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Nineteenth-century American Landscape Painting: Selections from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, 1983
McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas, American Masters: The Thyssen Bornemisza Collection, May 19-July 14, 1985, no. 8
National Museum Stockholm, Sweden; Gothenburg Art Museum, Sweden, A New World, American Landscape Painting, September 18, 1986-February 15, 1987, no. 16
Tate Britain, London; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880, February 21-November 17, 2002, no. 59
Adelson Galleries, New York, Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes & Seascapes, January 18-March 1, 2008, no. 16 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Public Treasures/Private Visions: Hudson River School Masterworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art & Private Collections, October 1, 2009-April 30, 2011
Mnuchin Gallery, New York, Church & Rothko: Sublime, September 21, 2020-March 15, 2021, no. 13
Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, 25 | 250: A Celebration of American Art Part I, January 16—February 28, 2026
Literature
Gerald L. Carr, Frederic Edwin Church--the Icebergs, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1980, p. 69, illus. fig. 41David B. Warren et al., Nineteenth-century American Landscape Painting: Selections from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982, p. 32, no. 9, illus. p. 33
John I. H. Baur, American Masters: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Milan: Electa Editrice, 1984, p. 144, no. 8, illus. p. 34
Görel Cavalli-Björkman and Nils Göran Hökby, En Ny Värld, Amerikanst Landskapmåleri, 1830-1900 / A New World, American Landscape Painting, 1830-1900, Sweden: Gothenburg Art Museum and National Museum Stockholm, 1986, no. 16
Timothy Mitchell, "Frederic Church's "The Icebergs": Erratic Boulders and Time's Slow Changes," Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Autumn 1989
Andrew Wilton and T.J. Barringer, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880, London: Tate Britain, 2002, pp. 180, 224, no. 59, illus. p. 180Eleanor Jones Harvey, The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Church's Arctic Masterpiece, Dallas Museum of Art, 2002, p. 57, illus. in color fig. 28
Frederic Edwin Church: Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes, New York: Adelson Galleries, 2007, no. 16, illus. fig. 13
Church & Rothko: Sublime, New York: Mnuchin Gallery in collaboration with Michael Altman and Christopher Rothko, 2020, p. 53, no. 13, illus.
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