Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y.
Open daily 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., May 22 through Oct 18, 2009
Admission Charged

May 22, 2009 – October 17, 2010

“A ‘Wild, Unsettled Country’: Early Reflections of the Adirondacks”

Maps, paintings, prints, and photographs illustrate the untamed Adirondack wilderness discovered by early cartographers, artists, and photographers.

A dozen rare and significant maps from the collection of the museum’s research library demonstrate the growth of knowledge about the Adirondacks. These include the “1704 Edition of Lahontan’s Voyages” by the Baron Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce Lahontan and the “Chronological Map of the Province of New York in North America Divided into Counties, Manors, and Townships . . . ,” by Claude Joseph Sauthier, 1779.    

The exhibit will showcase more than forty paintings from the museum’s exceptional collection, including works by Thomas Cole, John Frederick Kensett, William Havell, and James David Smillie.

“A ‘Wild Unsettled Country’” will feature photographs sold as tourist souvenirs and to “armchair travelers.” The first photographic landscape studies made in the Adirondacks by William James Stillman in 1859 have never been exhibited before. Photos by Seneca Ray Stoddard will also be included.