Jasper Cropsey's Ever Rest: Westchester’s Hidden Treasure

Jasper Cropsey, one of the most important of the Hudson River School of painters, was born on February 18, 1823, on a small working farm in Staten Island. Cropsey was a sickly boy took to his bed for weeks at a time. It was during these periods of convalesce that he learned to sketch and his early drawings included architectural sketches and landscapes drawn on notepads and in the margins of his schoolbooks.

JASPER CROPSEY: WESTCHESTER’S HIDDEN TREASURE

Thursday, August 9, at 7:00pm - Larchmont Public Library

Jasper Francis Cropsey is best known for his dramatic panoramas and his skill at capturing the splendor of autumn and his paintings convey an almost spiritual reverence for the American landscape. In his youth, Cropsey developed a keen interest in architecture; an interest that continued throughout his life and was a strong influence in his painting, most evident in his precise arrangement and outline of forms. But Cropsey was best known for his lavish use of color and, as a first-generation member from the Hudson River School, painted autumn landscapes that startled viewers with their boldness and brilliance. As an artist, he believed landscapes were the highest art form and that nature was a direct manifestation of God. He also felt a patriotic affiliation with nature and saw his paintings as depicting the rugged and unspoiled qualities of America. Today, Cropsey’s painting are in most major American museums including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Cropsey’s paintings also hang in the White House.

The Cropsey Homestead, also known as Ever Rest located in Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County, was built in 1835 and purchased by Jasper F. Cropsey in 1885. Cropsey extended Ever Rest by adding an artist's studio to it in 1885. Cropsey passed away on June, 1900. Today the home and studio are open to view by guided tour (by appointment) on weekdays and are part of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation. The tour passes by a window that provides a view of the Hudson River, and beside the window hangs a Cropsey painting of the same view. Also available at an adjacent site is a museum with a large collection of Cropsey paintings, shown by appointment.

Anthony Speiser has been with the Newington-Cropsey Foundation (NCF) since 1997, following a successful business and consulting career in Greenwich, CT. In 1999 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of NCF and was named Director in 2008. In addition to his position at NCF, Mr. Speiser is a trustee of several financial and charitable trusts in Fairfield County, CT.

An admirer of Jasper Cropsey and the Hudson River School at an early age, Mr. Speiser has contributed to many Hudson River School exhibitions and publications. In addition to his duties as Director, he is also the editor of the Jasper F. Cropsey Catalogue Raisonne, the first volume of which was published 2013 and Volume II in autumn, 2016. The final volume will be published by the end of 2018.

Mr. Speiser has guided hundreds of tours through Ever Rest, the Cropsey home and studio, and the Gallery of Art which houses the Foundation’s permanent collection of Cropsey’s work. He also gives frequent talks on Cropsey and the Hudson River painters throughout Westchester County and the Hudson River Valley.