Dreams and Shadows: Thomas H. Hotchkiss in Nineteenth-Century Italy
by: Novak, Barbara

Softcover. New York, Universe Pub, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 138 pages. Softcover. Color photographs. Light edgewear to wrappers otherwise clean, unmarked copy. Hotchkiss (1833-69), an American painter and intimate of Asher B. Durand and Elihu Vedder, is the quintessential delicate artist who dies, underappreciated, at a young age. The title refers not only to his romantic landscapes but also to his sketchy career. This catalog accompanies an exhibition that opens this fall at the National Academy of Design. Novak, a premier art historian of the Hudson River School, provides a provocative essay on Hotchkiss as the fragile, poetic artist fixated on capturing evocative images of the ancient past. Felker, the exhibition curator, provides an insightful catalog of works arranged by subject matter. Appendixes include an exhibition checklist, a chronology of the artist's life, and transcriptions of selected manuscript material. Recommended for academically oriented art history collections.