Sarah Cole

Sarah Cole (1805–1857) was an American landscape painter and the sister of prominent American landscape painter Thomas Cole. Although she was among the small group of early American female landscape painters, little is known about her life and few of her paintings are known to have survived. Early life Cole was born in Lancashire, England. Her parents, James and Mary Cole, had six other children aside from her and Thomas, all daughters. Thomas was the seventh of the eight children, and Sarah was the youngest. In 1818, her parents immigrated to the United States with four of their children, the sisters Ann, Mary, and Sarah, their brother Thomas, and an aunt. The family arrived in Philadelphia in July, and moved to Steubenville, Ohio, in September of the same year, with Thomas following on a year later. In Steubenville, Ann and Mary opened a seminary, where Sarah may have also eventually taught. In 1824, the family moved to Pittsburgh. The next year, they moved to New York City, where Sarah likely lived for the rest of her life. She often visited Catskill, where she and Thomas would hike in the Catskill Mountains, and occasionally visited family and friends in Baltimore. Career and paintings It is not known when Sarah Cole began to make art, though she first mentions that she is painting in letters to her brother in the mid 1830s. She exhibited her paintings publicly only after the death of Thomas in February 1848, most likely to help support herself financially. The National Academy of Design in New York City displayed her work from 1848 to 1852, and her works also appeared in the American Art-Union and the Maryland Historical Society during her lifetime. Titles of these canvases indicate original, rather than copied, subjects. The majority of her exhibited paintings are now believed to be lost.