If an artist’s studio is an extension of the artist’s creative mind—the space where the artist’s art is conceived, worked out and brought to fruition—then preserving and restoring artists’ studios ought to be a top priority. In the last few decades, with programs such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios coalition, and the realization across the board that studios do indeed offer extraordinary insights, this idea has come into its own.
With astounding foresight, Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole’s widow, children and sister preserved his “New Studio” keeping it just as he left it for decades after his untimely death in 1848, at the age of 47. As artist Jasper Cropsey wrote after a visit in 1850, “it seemed as if Mr. Cole would…be in in a few minutes, for everything remains as when he last left painting…. Though the man has departed, yet he has left a spell behind him that is not broken.” Many artists made the pilgrimage to Catskill, New York, to pay their respects to Cole. They
