Long before Georgia O’Keeffe found her way to New Mexico, a group of American painters found their subject much closer to home. Thomas Cole settled in the village of Catskill in the 1820s, and what he painted from his windows, the river, the mountains, the changing light of the seasons, became the foundation of the Hudson River School, America’s first true school of landscape painting.
This October, Adventures in Art spends four days inside that history. The trip moves between the homes of Cole and his most celebrated student, private studio and collection visits, and the outdoor sculptures of Storm King Art Center, all set against a valley in the middle of its autumn color.
Cole’s home and studio, Cedar Grove, sits in Catskill much as it did when he lived there, the rooms and grounds where he developed the ideas that would define an entire generation of American painting. Just across the river, his student Frederic Church built Olana, a Persian-inspired estate he designed himself after years of travel abroad. Church chose the site specifically for its view up and down the Hudson, and standing on the grounds today, it’s easy to see the same composition he returned to again and again in his work.
Beyond the two homes, the trip moves through the river towns of Beacon and Hudson, once quiet stops along the water and now home to thriving communities of galleries, antique dealers, and working artists. Add in the Gilded Age grandeur of the Vanderbilt Mansion, FDR’s presidential library at Hyde Park, and Frank Gehry’s Fisher Center at Bard College, and four days move through nearly two centuries of American art and history without ever leaving the valley.
We were just in the Hudson Valley last month, and we cannot wait to go back this fall to explore even more of what makes this region so rich.
Fall for Art in the Hudson Valley runs October 5-8, 2026. Registration closes July 13, and we’re keeping this group small enough that the access stays personal.
If autumn light on the river and four days with some of the most important homes in American art sounds like your kind of trip, reach out to ryn@adventuresinart.com to reserve your place or ask any questions.