This is the 1st in a series of timelines looking at Rochester art and the Memorial Art Gallery in celebration of the Galley's centennial in October 2013.
Thomas Davies painted the first view of the Genesee Falls in 1766. The watercolor is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., (1771-1848), may have visited the Portage area on the Genesee River several times.
This formal gentleman was the founder of Rochesterville, precursor to the city of Rochester, which was incorporated in 1834.
In 1820, Paul Hinds became Rochester's first resident artist. No work by this artist has yet been identified.
The original Erie Canal aqueduct over the Genesee River in Rochester was completed in 1823.
Portrait painter Horace Harding was reported in Rochester in December 1823.
In December 1823, William Dunlap's painting was exhibited in Rochester.
Originally based in Canandaigua, John Lee Douglas Mathies opened the first art gallery in Rochester around 1826.
Even before the official opening of the Erie Canal, artists found their way to Rochester.
In 1827, Captain Basil Hall visited Rochester via the newly opened Erie Canal.
In July 1828, the Rochester Daily Advertiser announced a showing of a painting about the purported abduction and murder of Anti-Masonic activist William Morgan.
The Rochester Athenaeum was founded in 1829 and housed in the first Reynolds Arcade.
Resident artists in the 1830s included Alvah Bradish, Grove S. Gilbert, Colby Kimball (or Kimble), Eugene Sintzenich and John T. Young.
In July 1830, the Ballroom at Clinton House was the site of an exhibition of paper cuttings, or papyrotomia, by a young artist by the name of Hankes.
In October 1830, Dunlap's monumental painting of Christ Bearing the Cross exhibited at Clinton House.
The City of Rochester was incorporated April 28, 1834, just three years after Nathaniel Rochester's death.
In August 1834, Messrs. Waugh announced the exhibition of paintings and mechanisms to be held at "Mr. Whitney's Marble Block, a few doors south of the Mansion House."
The English painter George Harvey was another traveler who found inspiration along the Erie Canal.
Rochester was known as The Flour City between 1834 and 1854 for its exports of flour via the Erie Canal.
Eugene Sintzenich came to Rochester around 1839 to paint a mural of Niagara Falls in the Reynolds Arcade.
In August 1839 an exhibition of history paintings was shown at the Court House.
The 1839 Mechanics Fair featured a number of paintings.
The Pitkin House, one of the early East Avenue mansions was built around 1840.
Rochesterians showed early interest in the Daguerreotype process.
In 1843, an attempt was made to form an Association of Artists.
The importance of the Falls to Rochester in the early- to mid-eighteenth century is shown by the number of water raceways depicted in this print: Brown's Race (constructed in 1815) and several other raceways line both sides of the Falls.
Like many artists, Thomas Cole traveled extensively, sketching views that he would later include in finished (and much larger) paintings.
Rochesterians subscribed to the distribution of art by the American Art-Union, which was founded in 1839.
The University of Rochester was founded in 1850 as a Baptist-sponsored institution.
This painting of a Train Leaving Auburn Station at Rochester, N.Y., was painted by Eugene Sintzenich around 1850.
Canandaigua artist Agnes Jeffrey's painting of western NY wildflowers won first prize in the world's fair held at London's Crystal Palace in 1851.
Martin Brewer Anderson (1815-1890) became the first president of the University in 1853 and served until 1888.
University of Rochester trustee Azariah Boody (1815-1885) gave land for the Prince Street campus, later to become home to the Memorial Art Gallery.
In 1854, a there was a short-lived attempt to form a Gallery of Fine Arts in Rochester.
The Gallery's founder, Emily Sibley, was born in 1855 to Elizabeth Tinker Sibley and Hiram Sibley.
By the late 1850's Rochester became known as the Flower City for its many nurseries.
In 1859 an Academy of Music and Art was established in the top floor of the Rochester Savings Bank.
This view across the Genesee Valley near Geneseo is as breathtaking now as it was over two hundred years ago, when landowner James S. Wadsworth commissioned Hudson River school founder Asher B. Durand to record the beauty of the landscape in a painting.
The Rochester Historical Society was incorporated in 1861 by Louis Henry Morgan.
Emily L. (Elizabeth) Smith painted this view of Rochesterians skating on the Genesee River in 1862.
Josiah Humphrey, an art dealer from Chicago, opened an Art Gallery on Exchange Street in February 1862.
The top floor of the Reynolds Arcade, built in 1861, became a prime location for artists's studios.
The short-lived Rochester Academy of Fine Arts opened to the public in May 1862, in its home on the second floor of the Rochester Savings Bank.
In 1863, Rochester educator Myron Peck began the first of 15 years shepherding wealthy young Rochesterians to Europe.
Returning from a trip to Europe, University of Rochester President Martin Brewer Anderson began public lectures on the fine arts.
While Hiram Sibley, founder of Western Union, traveled in Europe 1864-1866, he purchased art for his personal collection.
Views of the Genesee River Valley remained popular in the 1860s.
The demand for nurseryman's plates helped grow a local market for color lithography.
Built in 1869 for the manufacture of pig iron, the Charlotte Blast Furnace was in operation until 1927.
Helen (Helena) Searle grew up in Rochester and taught art at the Bryan Female Seminary in Batavia, New York.
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