Kevin J. Avery (curator) is an associate curator in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is the author of Church's Great Picture: The Heart of the Andes, which accompanied an exhibition of the same title at the Metropolitan in 1993, and of numerous catalogue essays and articles on the subject of nineteenth-century American landscape painting. He is also editor of American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume I (2002), and coeditor of Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford (2003), the catalogue of an exhibition that originated at the Metropolitan and traveled to the Amon Carter Museum and the National Gallery of Art. John Wilmerding is Christopher Binyon Sarafim '86 Professor of American Art in the Department of Art and Archeology at Princeton University and visiting curator in the Department of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is author of many books and articles on American painting and was recently reappointed by President George W. Bush to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

"Church boasted, 'Almost an hour south of Albany is the Center of the World—I own it.' The word 'Olana' is one that Mr. and Mrs. Church found applied to a 'fortress or treasury-storehouse in ancient Persia.' According to Kevin J. Avery's description in his excellent and entertaining catalog text, it feels like a fortress from outside and is a musty treasury within, evoking 'nothing so much as a silent film set, minus a turbaned Douglas Fairbanks Sr. bounding down the stairs.'."

Kevin J. Avery (curator) is an associate curator in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is the author of Church's Great Picture: The Heart of the Andes, which accompanied an exhibition of the same title at the Metropolitan in 1993, and of numerous catalogue essays and articles on the subject of nineteenth-century American landscape painting. He is also editor of American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume I (2002), and coeditor of Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford (2003), the catalogue of an exhibition that originated at the Metropolitan and traveled to the Amon Carter Museum and the National Gallery of Art. John Wilmerding is Christopher Binyon Sarafim '86 Professor of American Art in the Department of Art and Archeology at Princeton University and visiting curator in the Department of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is author of many books and articles on American painting and was recently reappointed by President George W. Bush to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

"Church boasted, 'Almost an hour south of Albany is the Center of the World—I own it.' The word 'Olana' is one that Mr. and Mrs. Church found applied to a 'fortress or treasury-storehouse in ancient Persia.' According to Kevin J. Avery's description in his excellent and entertaining catalog text, it feels like a fortress from outside and is a musty treasury within, evoking 'nothing so much as a silent film set, minus a turbaned Douglas Fairbanks Sr. bounding down the stairs.'."

Kevin J. Avery (curator) is an associate curator in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is the author of Church's Great Picture: The Heart of the Andes, which accompanied an exhibition of the same title at the Metropolitan in 1993, and of numerous catalogue essays and articles on the subject of nineteenth-century American landscape painting. He is also editor of American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume I (2002), and coeditor of Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford (2003), the catalogue of an exhibition that originated at the Metropolitan and traveled to the Amon Carter Museum and the National Gallery of Art. John Wilmerding is Christopher Binyon Sarafim '86 Professor of American Art in the Department of Art and Archeology at Princeton University and visiting curator in the Department of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is author of many books and articles on American painting and was recently reappointed by President George W. Bush to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

"Church boasted, 'Almost an hour south of Albany is the Center of the World—I own it.' The word 'Olana' is one that Mr. and Mrs. Church found applied to a 'fortress or treasury-storehouse in ancient Persia.' According to Kevin J. Avery's description in his excellent and entertaining catalog text, it feels like a fortress from outside and is a musty treasury within, evoking 'nothing so much as a silent film set, minus a turbaned Douglas Fairbanks Sr. bounding down the stairs.'."