Washington, DC -- Congressman Eliot Engel, Sculptor Greg Wyatt and Hastings-on-Hudson Mayor Peter Swiderski unveiled a model of a sculpture by Mr. Wyatt that will honor the founders of the Hudson River School painters.

            The ceremony, in MacEchron Park on the Hudson River Friday, is where the sculpture will rest and where a model of it was unveiled Friday. Rep. Engel is co-sponsor of a resolution (H. Res. 762) in Congress honoring the Hudson River School painters.

            Rep. Engel said, “This monument will honor Thomas Cole, founder of the school, as well as other members such as Asher B. Durand, Frederic E. Church, John F. Kensett, Sanford R. Gifford, and Jasper F. Cropsey. This was the first school of American painting and it is fitting that it started on the Hudson River, in many ways the birthplace of American independence.”

            Mr. Wyatt, who was born in Grandview-on-Hudson, is Sculptor in Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Devine, where his massive bronze work, Peace, stands.

            Mayor Swiderski thanked Rep. Engel for his help and for co-sponsoring the resolution. He noted that the monument is placed so that when you look at it, you need only raise your eyes a bit to see the Palisades that so inspired the painters, and to know that they are the same today as they were in 1825 when Thomas Cole first saw them while sailing up the Hudson.

Today, the major works of this school are hung in museums across the country.

At the ceremony on the water's edge with the Mayor, Rep. Engel and Mr. Wyatt were Parks Commissioner Ray Gomes, members of the Village of Hastings Board of Trustees and those of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.

The site will have three New York State Bronze Markers to honor these painters and masterworks of America's 19th century Hudson River School of Painting. Each of the markers will include on its pedestal a permanent text in raised bronze letters created by Dr. Kevin Avery, Associate Curator American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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