Chesterwood and Thomas Cole National Historic Site are both residences-turned-museums that interpret the works and lives of two established artists from the 19th century. Both are in the Hudson River Valley (Stockbridge, Massachusetts and Catskill, New York, respectively). And both have recently delved into the history of the artists’ daughters—both of whom made an indelible mark on these places.

At Chesterwood, a National Trust Historic Site, an exhibit on view through May 30, 2019, examined the life of Margaret French Cresson (an artist and curator who preserved her father’s artistic legacy). Meanwhile, Thomas Cole National Historic Site’s latest exhibit, on display through July 31, dives into Emily Cole’s work in painted porcelain and watercolor botanicals.

Margaret French Cresson’s Impact on Chesterwood

Though Margaret French Cresson was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and grew up in New York City, she spent most of her summers at Chesterwood after her father, Daniel Chester French, purchased the property in 1897. She posed for her father’s paintings and sculptures in his now-famous studio and gardens. In addition to his tutelage, she studied sculpture under Abastenia St. Leger Eberle and George Demetrios, and she developed her talents for drawing and design at the New York School of Applied Design for Women.

Cresson created many sculptures, as well as bas-reliefs and portraits of children, portrait heads, and memorial plaques throughout her lifetime. Many of her works were taken out of storage for Chesterwood’s recent exhibit.

According to Dana Pilson, the curatorial researcher for the exhibit, “[Cresson] was especially gifted in the art of portraiture, and her bas-reliefs of young children are full of personality and life. The portraits of children are especially touching, knowing that [Cresson] lost a baby at birth, and she and her husband did not have any other children.”

But she continued to live on the property, offering her wealth of knowledge to staff members for many years. Now, the recent exhibit detailing her invaluable contributions to Chesterwood and her father’s work, as well as her own pieces of art, enriches the story the Historic Site tells today.

Emily Cole at Cedar Grove: Then and Now

The exhibit at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site—formerly known as Cedar Grove—that features Emily Cole’s work is the artist’s first solo exhibit, including 12 original sets of her painted porcelain and 13 works on paper. In addition to this exhibit, over 100 of Cole’s watercolors and works of painted porcelain reside at the site in its main collection.

Like her four siblings, Emily Cole grew up in Cedar Grove; she also spent much of her life working there as an artist. She was the only one of Thomas Cole’s children to take an interest in painting, though she did not work specifically in the Hudson River School of painting that her father popularized in his lifetime. Instead, Cole focused on botanical watercolors of local flora.

In fact, according to Kate Menconeri, site director and director of collections, “a lot of the specimens she depicted on paper are blooming in the garden [at Cedar Grove] right now. She left a document of the flowers that are still here.”

Similar to Cresson, Cole studied at a New York City art school, though historians do not know which school she attended. She was also the charter member of the New York Society of Ceramic Arts, founding the organization in 1892 to encourage the appreciation of ceramics. And though the same resources and opportunities afforded to male artists of the time were not available to her and other women, Cole managed to earn a living selling her work.

At the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, efforts to tell the stories of women living and working at the home began around 2010 with an exhibition called “Remember the Ladies,” about the women of the Hudson River School.