Known for its outstanding collection of paintings from the Hudson River School, an early-to-mid 19th century movement that pictured the sublime in the landscape north of New York City, the New York Historical Society’s current exhibition ‘Kay WalkingStick / Hudson River School’ invites new perspectives on what is considered the first ‘American’ school of art. Kay WalkingStick, an artist of Cherokee descent, has for decades researched Native American histories in locations around the country, picturing specific landscapes overlaid with designs from local indigenous communities. Here, a Haudenosaunee pattern from the New York region indicates Native American presence in the landscape despite an absence of pictured people. The museum pairs WalkingStick’s depiction of Niagara with one foregrounding the power of the Falls by Louisa David Minot, one of the few female Hudson River artists, who referred to the scene as representative of conflict between Britain, the US and Native Americans around the War of 1812. (On view on the Upper West Side though April 14th).
