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Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 - April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters.
The wealth of Church's father allowed him to pursue his interest in art from a very early age. At eighteen years of age, Church became the pupil of Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design five years later, in 1849. Soon after, he sold his first major work to Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum.
Church settled in New York where he taught his first pupil, William James Stillman. From the spring to autumn each year Church would travel, often by foot, sketching. He returned each winter to paint and to sell his work.
In 1860 Church bought a farm in Hudson, New York and married Isabel Carnes. Both Church's first son and daughter died in March, 1863 of diphtheria, but he and his wife started a new family with the birth of Frederic junior in 1865.
When he and his wife had a family of four children, they began to travel together. In 1867 they visited Europe and the Middle East, allowing Church to return to painting larger works.
Before leaving on that trip, Church purchased the eighteen acres (73,000 m²) on the hilltop above his Hudson farm -- land he had long wanted because of its magnificent views of the Hudson River and the Catskills. In 1870 he began the construction of "Olana" on that site. This highly personal and eclectic castle incorporated many of the design ideas that he had acquired in the Middle East. Olana, now owned by the nonprofit Olana Partnership and administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is a New York State historic site open to the public.
Among Church's notable paintings are:
- The Falls of Tequendama (1854)
- Niagara Falls (1857)
- Secluded Landscape at Sunset (1860)
- Cotopaxi (1862)
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