April 14 and 15, 2026. Thomas Cole founded the Hudson River School which specialized in American landscape paintings. He is considered the father of the 1800s American landscape movement and primarily used oil on canvas. He celebrated the beauty of nature, and much of his work features the Catskills and the Hudson River Valley.
The National Historic Site in Catskill has Cole’s home and studio, plus one of the original honey-locust trees (200 years old!) that stood during Cole’s time.
Nearby Olana, Frederic Edwin Church’s designed home/grounds and a stop on the Hudson River School Art Trail (a National Recreation Trail). The “trail” is a collection of sites which inspired paintings of Cole and his school’s students.
Mount Merino and the Catskills (Sanford R. Gifford) as seen from Promenade Hill Park in Hudson.
The Art Trail has 21 sites between Yonkers and Albany, plus a few in MA and the White Mountains. Some sites I visited near the Catskills (not the ones I show in this post) had no signs designating them as part of this trail, and parking at two places were nonexistent. That being said, it’s definitely worth checking out the info contained on the website if you’re in the Northeast and a fan of 19th Century landscape art.
Hudsonriverschool dot org.