Sunday Salon Lecture: “What Dreams May Come: Thomas Cole and the Promise of America” with Graham C. Boettcher, Ph.D.

Join Graham C. Boettcher, Ph.D., Director & CEO of the Norman Rockwell Museum, for What Dreams May Come: Thomas Cole and the Promise of America, a lecture exploring Thomas Cole’s lasting influence on American art, identity, and our understanding of the American landscape.

Boettcher previously served as Director and CEO of the Birmingham Museum of Art and has a long-standing connection to Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School. His scholarship and curatorial work have explored American landscape painting, the German Romantics, and the idea of the “natural sublime,” including contributions to the landmark exhibition American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820–1880 at Tate Britain.

His work with Cole includes curating exhibitions featuring American landscape art and the last public exhibition of Cole’s 1826 masterpiece Falls of the Kaaterskill. In 2020, he was honored by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and delivered its Annual Beecher Lecture on Cole’s Hunters in a Landscape. He now returns to the site to share his insights in person.

The Salon takes place 2-3:30pm. The Sunday Salon series features monthly tours and lectures with leading thinkers on American art. Admission includes the salon, access to the historic buildings, and special exhibitions, open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.