Cole
Cole names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Cole THOMAS, an American landscape painter
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THOMAS, an American landscape painter; born in Lancashire, England, Feb. 1, 1801. His father, a woolen manufacturer, came to the United States when Thomas was 18 years old, and settled in Steubenville, O. Thomas worked in his father's shop for two years, but the coming of a portrait-painter to the village made him wish to be an artist. After a few lessons he set to work to paint pictures, and traveled for a while painting portraits and landscapes. In New York, by hard work, he succeeded in becoming one of the best American landscape painters. He was enabled to go to Europe and study the old masters. Among his best pictures are the five called "The Course of Empire" and the four "The Voyage of Life." He died in Catskill, N. Y., February, 1848.
Cole TIMOTHY, an English woodengraver
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
TIMOTHY, an English woodengraver; born in London, April 6, 1852. He early came to the United States, and established himself as an engraver, first in Chicago, and afterward in New York, where he pursued his calling with much success. In 1883 he went to Europe, and began a series of engravings from the old masters. A series of the old Italian masters was completed in 1892; of the Dutch-Flemish in 1896; of English, 1900; of old Spanish masters, 1902-1907; of French, 1910. From 1914 he was engaged on engravings of paintings in American galleries. He received first- 1893. He was author of "Notes on the Old Italian Masters" (1892); "Monograph on Lives of Dutch Masters" (1896); "Notes on English Masters" (1901).
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote in 1921 that Thomas Cole had become "one of the best American landscape painters," it did not use the label now attached to him everywhere: founder of the Hudson River School, the first native American landscape movement. His two great cycles survive intact and on public view, "The Course of Empire" at the New-York Historical Society and "The Voyage of Life" split between Utica and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. His Catskill house, Cedar Grove, became the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in 1999, and his lost 1846 studio was reconstructed there and opened in 2016. Timothy Cole, then still busy engraving American gallery paintings, died in 1931, and is generally regarded as the last master of a craft that photomechanical halftone reproduction had already made commercially obsolete.
Written for this edition, 2026.