We believe in Hudson Rivers School paintings as historic documents of American land and life, and I want to shift these paintings for you.  Saya Woolfalk

As artist in residence since 2019, artist Saya Woolfalk has immersed herself in the Museum’s American art and natural science collections. With Saya Woolfalk: Tumbling Into Landscape the artist has created an intervention exploring questions of identity and belonging in relationship to the land and multiple histories of the United States. Drawing attention to what is represented—and more often not represented—in these luminous, Eden-like paintings, Tumbling Into Landscape features a new self-portrait by Woolfalk with a selection of the Museum’s Hudson River School paintings, including six recently conserved works on view for the first time in decades.

Visit the related exhibition Saya Woolfalk’s Field Notes from the Empathic Universe also on view in Seeing America: 18th and 19th Centuries.

Saya Woolfalk, Self‑Portrait (Words by Sojourner Truth), 2021 Hand painted stained rice paper, and Bristol paper, Japanese Gold foil paper, watercolor, gouache, Gudy Glue, Acrylic Gel Medium, digital print on Hannemule paper, methyl cellulose, Gum Arabic, Substrate: Nepalese Lhakpa paper chine colled on Arches, 32 x 74 in. (81.28 x 187.96 cm) © Saya Woolfalk Photo by Richard Goodbody

George Caleb Bingham, Landscape: Lake in the Mountains, ca. 1850. Oil on canvas, 25/18 x 30 1/8 in. (63.8 x 76.5 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Hughes, 1959 59.94. Photo by Richard Goodbody

Thomas B. Griffin, Parting Day, ca. 1896‑1900. Oil on canvas, 18 x 30 in. (45.7 x 76.2 cm). Geographic Origin: United States of America. Gift of Forbes Magazine, 1983 83.265. Photo by Richard Goodbody

About the Artist

Saya Woolfalk is a New York-based artist who uses science fiction and fantasy to re-imagine the world in multiple dimensions. Working with a wide range of traditional and new media, Woolfalk creates immersive installations that activate themes of hybridity, technology, and human culture. Learn more about this artist.