The White Mountains from Randolph Hill

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Artist/Maker Homer Dodge Martin (American, 1836 - 1897)

Date1866-67

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsFrame: 22 5/8 × 33 × 2 7/8 in. (57.5 × 83.8 × 7.3 cm) Overall: 16 × 26 in. (40.6 × 66 cm)

Credit LineGift of J. Martin and Barbara Carovano

Object number2011.6

Not on view

DescriptionAlthough Homer Dodge Martin often based his paintings on sketches done from nature, he, like many artists, typically painted his canvases long after creating the original drawings. For example, the Albany-born Martin probably made the sketches on which The White Mountains from Randolph Hill is based in the summer of 1862 or 1863, when he spent time in the area around Gorham, New Hampshire, but he painted the canvas in his Manhattan studio in the winter of 1866–67, a season bookended by summers in the Adirondacks rather than the White Mountains. Randolph Hill is situated slightly north of Mount Washington, the snow-covered peak seen at the center of the painting. Martin made this work early in his career, when he was particularly indebted to the Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and John Frederick Kensett. The landscapes of the Hudson River School celebrated America’s majesty in highly detailed panoramas of prelapsarian wilderness, often devoid of people or history. Although initially beholden to these artists, Martin, like many others in the generation that lived through the Civil War and into the Reconstruction period, began to imbue his landscapes with a darker, more expressive tone and with a literal haze. He went on to become one of the best-known practitioners of Tonalism (as the new movement was coined) in the 1880s and 1890s. J. Martin Carovano was Hamilton’s sixteenth president, serving from 1974 to 1988. Under his leadership, the Fred L. Emerson Gallery was founded in the renovated Christian A. Johnson Hall (formerly Ellen Curtiss James Library). The Hamilton College Board of Trustees gave this painting to Carovano in 1988 in thanks for his years of service to the college. Carovano, in turn, donated it to the Emerson in its final year, 2011. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017)

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Additional Details

Exhibition History 2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 48, illus.).

Provenance 2011: Hamilton College (Fred L. Emerson Gallery), by gift of J. Martin and Barbara Carovano;
1988 - 2011: J. Martin and Barbara Carovano, by gift of the Hamilton College Board of Trustees;
1987: Hamilton College Board of Trustees, by purchase from David Findlay Jr. Inc. Fine Art, New York;
?: David Findlay Jr. Inc. Fine Art;
?: Mary Irwin, Chicago;
?: Anderson Galleries, Chicago;

Published References Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 126.

Signature Signed "H.D. Martin." at lower left in oil paint.