Eleanor Jones Harvey
the tip of
The Icebergs
I
n May 1862 Frederic Edwin Church had a problem. His latest “Great Picture,” a six-by-ninefoot canvas called The North—now known as The Icebergs—had failed to find a buyer, after being shown first in New York and then in Boston. As he had done with great success before, Church had carefully orchestrated the advance publicity surrounding this newest work: the painting made its debut at Goupil’s Gallery in New York City and garnered lengthy and glowing reports in the press. For The North, as with Niagara in 1857 (fig. 5) and The Heart of the Andes in 1859 (fig. 6), Church charged admission for the privilege of viewing his latest “Great Picture” and published a broadside that would enhance the visitors’ experience. This marketing strategy, popularized in Great Britain and admirably adapted by Church, had worked splendidly before. But now, facing an unsold painting that was a year old, Church had to confront what had gone wrong and find a permanent home for his first marketing failure. The “Great Picture” stratagem used the twin engines of publicity and exclusivity to attract notice to a (usually large-scale) painting. For Church, this meant scheduling a solo exhibition for each successive painting in New York, usually coinciding with the annual group exhibition at the National Academy of Design (NAD). Although Church was a member of the NAD, he rarely sent the academy his grandest work; instead, he used his studio or one of the newly emergent commercial galleries as an exhibition venue and created a singular moment for each of his paintings. After exhibition in New York, Niagara and The Heart of the Andes had both been shown in London, 45
(detail) Frederic Edwin Church, The Icebergs, 1861. Oil on canvas, 64½ × 112½ in. Dallas Museum of Art, Anonymous gift, 1979.28.