Insider Perspective

The Olana Partnership Launches 2017 Programming

The complex challenges facing cultural organizations today require an ability (and willingness) to be contemporary in intention and action (even when historic) and mindful of every opportunity to delight visitors. I aspire to SuperMuseum qualities (as defined by Aimee Chang, Director of Engagement at the UC Berkeley Art Museum). SuperMuseums are driven by why they do what they do and for whom they work as their priority; these successful organizations then plan backwards from why to what they do. Read More

The Olana Partnership Launches 2017 Programming

Olana’s Volunteering Pioneers

In this 50th anniversary year of Olana opening to the public as a NY State Historic Site, I would like to highlight the efforts of Olana’s first volunteers. These pioneering men and women led the charge to save Olana in 1966, tirelessly gave tours and hosted events to raise the funds needed to secure Olana’s future, while helping to catalog and research Olana’s collections and history.  We celebrate the legacy they have left for us. Read More

Olana’s Volunteering Pioneers

Olana’s Summer House Designers: IN THEIR OWN WORDS

The words of Frederic Church were highlighted in Olana’s recent exhibition, Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana’s Summer House. This design exhibition, which unites 21 visionary architects and landscape architects, allowed The Olana Partnership to feature aspects of Frederic Church’s talents which are sometimes overlooked. In addition to being a famous landscape painter, Church also viewed himself as an architect and landscape architect while creating his great masterpiece, Olana. Our exhibition has since traveled to the Center for Architecture in New York, which is a perfect venue. From the start, we collaborated closely with the New York chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY) and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA-NY). Read More

Olana’s Summer House Designers: IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Louis and Sally Church: First Stewards of the Olana Legacy

Last year we celebrated the saving of Olana in 1966, and its long-term successful stewardship and restoration through the collaborative efforts of New York State and The Olana Partnership. As we know, in 1953, over a decade before Olana Preservation Inc., and New York State saved Olana, Sally Good Church welcomed a young scholar, David Huntington for tea, and he was given permission to use the resources at Olana to research Frederic Church for his dissertation. This led to his passion for Church and Olana, and to his leading the charge to save Olana upon Sally’s death in 1964. Read More

Louis and Sally Church:  First Stewards of the Olana Legacy

Memories of Olana, to Olana

“Well here I am! At last – looking at a perfect Eden of picturesque beauty.” Novelist Grace King to her sister Nan from Olana, July 4, 1891 “It was an ideal holiday, in a Garden of Eden . . .” Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), June 11, 1887, writing a thank you note to Frederic Church after a recent visit to Olana Read More

Memories of Olana, to Olana

Autumn Fires: Fall Foliage Arrives at Olana—Inside and Out

“When the autumn fires light up the landscape you will see Nature’s palette set with her most precious and vivid colors. . .” Frederic E. Church to fellow Hudson River School painter, Jervis McEntee, autumn 1874 Read More

Autumn Fires: Fall Foliage Arrives at Olana—Inside and Out

Olana’s 50th – Celebrating the past, envisioning the future

A week from tonight The Olana Partnership will hold our annual Frederic Church Award Gala in New York City. This event is absolutely crucial to our work at Olana – providing over a third of our operating income and sustaining Olana’s curatorial and educational infrastructure. This year’s Gala is also the culmination of our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the saving of Olana – that pivotal, triumphant moment in 1966 when a remarkable coalition of public and private individuals, led by the young art historian David Huntington and the aspiring politician Sam Aldrich, succeeded against great odds in preserving America’s most important and intact artist-designed environment. Read More

Olana’s 50th – Celebrating the past, envisioning the future

Olana Plein Air: Artist as Inspiration

“It is a particularly lovely Autumn here . . . mainly soft weather toned to suit an Artist’s eye.” Frederic E. Church to painter John Ferguson Weir from Olana, October 1891 Read More

Olana Plein Air: Artist as Inspiration

Fifty Years of Volunteers

Do you want to help Olana? If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you do. We need caring and enthusiastic individuals like you to become Olana volunteers. Fifty years ago, the fight to save Olana was led by volunteers both young and old. Without their dedication and effort, Olana’s treasures might have been scattered across the globe and the house and estate parceled off for development. Volunteers were the lifeblood of Olana back then and they still are today. If you’ve ever taken a tour of the house or attended one of our events, you’ve probably met one of our wonderful volunteers. We could not do what we do without their gifts of time and energy. Read More

Fifty Years of Volunteers

The Art of Conversation: Curatorial Practice at Olana

“I think it would amuse you . . . to see the medley in the box-for there are rugs-armour-stuffs-curiosities . . . Arab spears-beads from Jerusalem-stones from Petra and 10,000 other things.” Frederic Church to William Henry Osborn, February 4, 1869 Read More

The Art of Conversation: Curatorial Practice at Olana