Contemporary Native American artists vs. 19th century landscape painting

The Farnsworth Art Museum (Rockland, ME) presents Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape, a traveling exhibition from the Thomas Cole National Historic Site (Catskill, NY). Curated by Scott Manning Stevens, Karoniaktatsie (Akwesasne Mohawk), Native Prospects invites visitors to explore the complex relationship between Indigenous cultures and the landscape through a unique juxtaposition of contemporary Native American art and Indigenous works of historic and cultural value and 19th-century American landscape paintings, including works by Thomas Cole. Native Prospects also marks a remarkable moment in art history with the return of Cole to Maine, and will be on view from March 8 through July 6, 2025.

Native Prospects features work by Cole and by Indigenous artists including Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa), Brandon Lazore (Onondaga, Snipe Clan), Truman T. Lowe (Ho-Chunk), Alan Michelson (Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River), and Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee). The exhibition opens conversations surrounding American art and the land and peoples who have shaped it.

“We are thrilled to bring this important exhibition to Maine and to create a platform for conversations that recognize the land not just as scenery but as a living, evolving story that holds deep cultural and spiritual significance,” Christopher J. Brownawell, Executive Director of the Farnsworth Art Museum, said.

One of the most compelling features of the exhibition is the dialogue between Cole’s romanticized landscapes and the contemporary works of Native artists, such as Teresa Baker. Stevens highlights one particularly striking pairing: “In juxtaposing Thomas Cole’s idealized landscapes with Teresa Baker’s unconventional, material-rich interpretations of the northern prairie, we open a conversation about how our understanding of the land has evolved. This pairing challenges viewers to reconsider the way landscapes are presented and invites a deeper, more nuanced engagement with the land itself.”

Largely, 19th-century American landscape painting has a stark absence of communities of the original inhabitants of the land.

“Native Prospects emerged from a conversation about how landscapes have been represented in American art,” Stevens said. “Often, Native peoples are relegated to mere background figures in landscape paintings, and this exhibition seeks to confront that narrative by placing Native perspectives at the center. Through cross-cultural dialogue and a careful selection of works, we’re creating space for Indigenous artists to reclaim and reinterpret their relationship to the land.”

Thomas Cole first visited Maine in 1844, spending the summer on Mount Desert Island sketching the rocky coastline. The rugged, dramatic, and seemingly “unsettled” landscape of Cole’s paintings from that trip encouraged a wave of both tourists and artists to visit the area.

“Thomas Cole influenced an important tradition in American landscape painting of artists traveling to Maine to capture its coastline and mountains,” Francesca Soriano, Associate Curator of American Art, said. “But Cole was not the first to be captivated with Maine, Wabanaki People have and continue to find inspiration in the land and waterways of their homeland for centuries.”

The exhibition is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.