White Mountain art exhibit turns gaze to art that shaped NH tourism

It was an earlier eras version of going viral.

Soon after John Frederick Kensett created a dramatic painting of the White Mountains, the image swept the country, not only putting New Hampshire on the map but also preserving a poignant rural view of life in a swiftly industrializing nation.

Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway is considered the most famous New England landscape of the 19th century, and its associated school of art and expression have become an enduring advertisement for the Granite State, whose tourism industry today still celebrates the balance of natural and cultural resources.

Canvassing the White Mountains: Icons of Place, on view from Saturday through Sept. 12 at the Historical Society of Cheshire County in Keene, traces that pivotal journey with more than 40 historic paintings by landscape artists including Benjamin Champney, Alfred Bricher, Asher Durand, John Enneking, Alvan Fisher, John Ross Key, Willard Metcalf and William Paskell.

The exhibit will share how the painting styles of these artists illustrate not only the evolution of American art, but also how they helped to shape the American view of and reaction to wilderness and nature, said Alan Rumrill, the historical societys executive director, of pieces from the 1800s through the early 1900s. (The exhibition conveys) how the work of the artists impacted the growth and development of the White Mountain region.

Evolution of Art

In the summer of 1850 three young American artists discovered North Conway Village in New Hampshires White Mountains. Kensett, Champney and John Casilear were drawn there by the work of earlier landscape artists who strove to capture the grandeur of the mountains and countryside.

Champney, a native of New Ipswich who had previously painted a View of Keene, N.H. in his home region, described the village and surrounding landscape as the most beautiful place on Earth, said Rick Swanson, development director at the historical society.

Drawing a Response

These White Mountain Art painters, many in residence at hotels such as the Profile House in Franconia Notch, Crawford House in Crawford Notch and Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, were among the first marketers of New Hampshire in an age of railroads and resort hotels.

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White Mountain art exhibit turns gaze to art that shaped NH tourism