FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CHRYSLER MUSEUM BECOMES ‘THOMAS COLE CENTRAL’
WITH MONUMENTAL MASTERWORKS FROM VOYAGE OF LIFE AND CHRYSLER COLLECTION
Iconic Canvases by the Father of American Landscape Painting
Fill Newly Expanded Gallery with Spectacular Messages of Hope
NORFOLK, VA – (October 20, 2014) – It’s the story of Everyman, beautifully told by one of the founding
fathers of American art. The Chrysler Museum of Art presents Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life, a special
exhibition of some of the finest—and largest—works by our country’s greatest landscape painter. This
show will be on view from October 21, 2014 through January 18, 2015. Admission is free.
The centerpiece of this exhibition is the iconic series The Voyage of Life (1839–40), the most famous
and beloved work of landscape master Thomas Cole (1801–1848). Spanning four monumental
canvases, The Voyage of Life takes viewers on a journey through Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old
Age, presenting each stage as the progress of an everyday voyager along a grand but treacherous
river. These masterpieces from the collection of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of
Art in Utica, N.Y., are rarely loaned to other museums, and they embark on this historic tour together
with a choice group of seldom-exhibited preliminary studies and early prints. The exhibition is supported
by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities.
“The Voyage of Life completes a monumental year in the history of the Chrysler,” says Erik Neil, who
becomes the Museum’s Director in October. “In May, Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck helped us
reopen our expanded and renovated building with a splash. Now this exhibition of masterworks by
Thomas Cole reiterates our commitment to bringing art of great historical importance and the highest
quality to our community.”
The Voyage of Life is the finest and most celebrated example of what Cole called a “higher style of
landscape,” through which he aimed to illustrate moral messages with the beauty of nature. The artist
began his career with illustrations of the forests, rivers, and mountains of Hudson River Valley and
Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. Based on these works, Cole is remembered as the inventor of
the Hudson River School of landscape painting and one of the first artists to define a distinctly
American style of art. Cole, however, always aspired to be more than “a mere leaf painter.” Thus, for
this monumental series, he combined his expertise in landscape painting with an epic story of faith and
perseverance, celebrating nature as a source of religious and poetic inspiration.
This series was widely admired, and reproductions of it decorated parlors throughout America in the
mid- and late-1800s. The Chrysler’s exhibition traces not only the creation of The Voyage of Life, but
also the spread of its popularity thanks to the new technologies of printmaking and photography. In
1842 Cole added to its fame by painting a second version of the series, now in the collection of the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
“It’s an unbelievable opportunity,” says Alex Mann, the Chrysler’s Brock Curator of American Art.
“Works of this size and importance almost never leave their home museums, and we are so lucky to
bring Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life to Norfolk.”
To enhance the exhibition, the Chrysler will hang the paintings opposite its own Thomas Cole
masterpiece, The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds (1833–34). While works in The Voyage of Life are
each over seven feet wide framed, The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds is the largest single canvas
that Cole ever painted, covering almost 16 horizontal feet of wall space.
“The scale of these works is breathtaking,” says Mann. “Cole wanted his audiences to lose themselves
in these stories. The paintings are so big that you have to move around to see all of their details. You
have to walk, to physically take a journey. They’re interactive.”
Although The Voyage of Life exhibition will be on view in other American cities, The Angel Appearing to
the Shepherds is unlikely ever to travel, due to its size and fragility, Mann noted. The painting once
belonged to the Boston Athenaeum, but after being rolled up in storage for generations, it was
purchased by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. in 1980 and immediately given to the Chrysler Museum. Scholars
have written about similarities between this work and The Voyage of Life, but the paintings have never
before been exhibited collectively. This makes the Norfolk exhibition a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
see these Cole masterworks together.
“We alone are uniting an artist’s early masterpiece with his signature achievement,” says Mann. “In
one, we see youthful ambition and potential. On the opposite wall, we have mature talent and
professional triumph. It will be spectacular!”
Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life will be on view in the Penny and Peter Meredith Gallery, a newly
expanded and refurbished space in the heart of the Museum’s Brock Wing of American Art. The show
will include an interactive touch-screen kiosk for deeper exploration of Cole’s life and career, and The
Museum Shop will offer a beautifully illustrated, 80-page exhibition catalogue for sale ($24.99).
The Chrysler also is hosting special programs related to the Cole exhibition:
Sunday, November 16 at 2 p.m.
Lecture, “The Spiritual Journey” by the Rev. Canon Win Lewis, Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church,
Norfolk, Va., in the Chrysler Museum’s Kaufman Theater, followed by a Gallery Talk by Alex Mann,
Brock Curator of American Art, Chrysler Museum of Art, in the Meredith Gallery (G. 211). Admission is
free.
Wednesday, November 19 at 11 a.m.
Norfolk Society of Arts Lecture, “Thomas Cole’s Course of American Politics in the 1830s” by Dr. Brian
T. Allen of the New-York Historical Society, in the Chrysler Museum’s Kaufman Theater. Admission is
free, with priority seating for NSA members.
Throughout the exhibition
Free guided tours for college groups. To schedule a docent- or curator-led tour, contact Ruth Sanchez
in the Education Department at (757) 333-6269 or rsanchez@chrysler.org.
About the Chrysler Museum of Art
The recently expanded Chrysler Museum of Art is one of America’s most distinguished mid-sized art museums,
with a nationally recognized collection of more than 30,000 objects, including one of the great glass collections in
America. The core of the Chrysler’s collection was given to the Museum by Walter Chrysler, Jr., an avid art
collector who donated thousands of objects from his private collection to the Museum. In the years since
Chrysler’s death in 1988, the Museum has dramatically expanded its collection and extended its ties with the
Norfolk community. The Museum now has rapidly growing collections, especially of contemporary glass and 21stcentury works.
In 2011, the Chrysler opened a full-service glass studio to tie with a 560-pound capacity glass furnace, a full hot
shop, a flameworking studio, nine annealing ovens, and a coldworking shop. In addition, the Chrysler Museum of
Art also administers two historic houses in downtown Norfolk: the Moses Myers House and the Willoughby-Baylor
House.
The Chrysler Museum of Art, One Memorial Place, Norfolk, and its Perry Glass Studio at 745 Duke St., are open
to the public Tuesday through Sunday. The Historic Houses on East Freemason Street are open weekends.
General admission is free at all venues. For more information on the Chrysler Museum of Art, visit chrysler.org.
Media Contact
Virginia Hilton
The Meridian Group
(757) 340-7425 / (757) 232-2178 (c)
Virginia@TheMeridianGroup.com