Frederic Church: Global Artist (Yale University Press, in association with The Olana Partnership, 2026)

Each month we choose a book connected to an artist, a place, or the wider world of American art history. Some are biographies. Some are field guides. Some are the very books that sat on an artist’s own desk. All of them are worth your time, and all of them will send you deeper into the stories these extraordinary places have to tell.

This month we’re reading Frederic Church: Global Artist (Yale University Press), a new collection of essays marking Church’s 200th birthday. It follows him from South America to the North Atlantic to the Middle East, and asks what his paintings tell us about empire, industry, and a country remaking itself. It’s also the companion to Olana’s bicentennial exhibition, which is on view through October 25.