Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage

Artist Frederic Church was the most popular and financially successful painter in mid-19th-century America, best known for his large paintings of wild places in North and South America, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. But from the late 1860s until the late 1870s, many of his most important paintings represented ancient cities or buildings from his trip to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. While Church’s paintings of the New World subjects focused on nature, his Old World subjects explore human history. This exhibition brings together nearly all of Church’s most important paintings of the Middle East, Athens and Rome to explore what motivated this major shift in his artistic work.

Tickets are now on sale! One ticket provides admission to both Monet: Framing Life and Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage. 

This exhibition has been organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Generous support has been provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. A significant loan of objects has been provided by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

A catalog accompanies the exhibition. Support for the catalogue has been provided by the Ida and Conrad Smith Fund.