Skip to main contentBiographyIn the period following the Civil War, landscape painters such as Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) unwittingly helped to shape public policy and inspired the conservation of large tracts of land. Their dramatic vistas of western scenery promoted tourism and sparked the establishment of the National Parks System. At the height of his career, Bierstadt earned more money for his paintings than any other American artist. Sadly, by the end of the century, the demand for his kind of grandiose statement had dwindled and he became a forgotten figure. There was little public interest in his work again until the 1960s when the Florence Lewison Gallery in New York City organized an exhibition.
Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany, but came to the United States in 1833. Little is known of Bierstadt’s early training, but records indicate he grew up New Bedford, Massachusetts, and exhibited there as early as 1851. During this time, Bierstadt developed his entrepreneurial savvy. He offered drawing lessons for three dollars and also collaborated with artist George Harvey on a picture show that projected landscapes for a paying audience. [1] By 1853 Bierstadt had acquired sufficient funds to go overseas. He studied for four years at the academy in Düsseldorf alongside of Emanuel Leutze and Worthington Whittredge. He traveled throughout the Alpine regions of Germany, an experience that helped to shape his landscapes of the American West.
After his return to the United States in 1858, Bierstadt began his work as an artist-explorer in earnest. In 1859, he travelled with Frederick W. Lander’s Honey Road Survey team through Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains. That same year, he moved into the Tenth Street Studio Building, a prestigious address equipped specifically for artists. His early western landscapes, the product of his sketches made during the survey expedition, received little critical acclaim. However, another trip west into the Yosemite and San Francisco territories yielded paintings that received high praise and tremendous commercial success. Bierstadt’s painting The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sold in 1865 for $25,000, a record-setting sum for the period. In 1875, Bierstadt was commissioned by the federal government to adorn the United States Capitol building with an image entitled The Discovery of the Hudson. Despite this considerable success, however, Bierstadt and his style of painting fell victim to a shift in taste toward simpler, smaller canvases influenced by the French Barbizon School. By 1895, he was bankrupt, and by the time of his death in 1902, was all but forgotten.
The magnificent scenery depicted by Bierstadt and his contemporaries prompted the government to preserve western lands. Many of the views he immortalized on canvas are little changed today by virtue of National Park System. [2] In 1860, an anonymous critic writing in the art journal The Crayon described the significance of Bierstadt’s western subjects: “The scenery of this section of our territory [the Rocky Mountains] has for a long time been a matter of curiosity to lovers of landscape, who have been excited and yet not satisfied by the vague and contradictory reports of explorers. Through the better expression of the brush we can now form some idea of it, Mr. Bierstadt’s pencil being too true and powerful to be questioned.” [3] The ability of Bierstadt’s art to reach a popular audience and early conservationists is a testament to his skill and sensitivity in recording the American landscape.
Notes:
[1] Nancy K. Anderson, Linda S. Ferber, and Helena Wright, Albert Bierstadt: Art & Enterprise (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Brooklyn Museum, 1990), 23.
[2] Mary S. Haverstock, “Can Nature Imitate Art?” Art in America 54 (January–February 1966), 73.
[3] “Sketchings,” The Crayon 7, no. 3 (March 1860), 83.
Albert Bierstadt
1830 - 1902
Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany, but came to the United States in 1833. Little is known of Bierstadt’s early training, but records indicate he grew up New Bedford, Massachusetts, and exhibited there as early as 1851. During this time, Bierstadt developed his entrepreneurial savvy. He offered drawing lessons for three dollars and also collaborated with artist George Harvey on a picture show that projected landscapes for a paying audience. [1] By 1853 Bierstadt had acquired sufficient funds to go overseas. He studied for four years at the academy in Düsseldorf alongside of Emanuel Leutze and Worthington Whittredge. He traveled throughout the Alpine regions of Germany, an experience that helped to shape his landscapes of the American West.
After his return to the United States in 1858, Bierstadt began his work as an artist-explorer in earnest. In 1859, he travelled with Frederick W. Lander’s Honey Road Survey team through Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains. That same year, he moved into the Tenth Street Studio Building, a prestigious address equipped specifically for artists. His early western landscapes, the product of his sketches made during the survey expedition, received little critical acclaim. However, another trip west into the Yosemite and San Francisco territories yielded paintings that received high praise and tremendous commercial success. Bierstadt’s painting The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sold in 1865 for $25,000, a record-setting sum for the period. In 1875, Bierstadt was commissioned by the federal government to adorn the United States Capitol building with an image entitled The Discovery of the Hudson. Despite this considerable success, however, Bierstadt and his style of painting fell victim to a shift in taste toward simpler, smaller canvases influenced by the French Barbizon School. By 1895, he was bankrupt, and by the time of his death in 1902, was all but forgotten.
The magnificent scenery depicted by Bierstadt and his contemporaries prompted the government to preserve western lands. Many of the views he immortalized on canvas are little changed today by virtue of National Park System. [2] In 1860, an anonymous critic writing in the art journal The Crayon described the significance of Bierstadt’s western subjects: “The scenery of this section of our territory [the Rocky Mountains] has for a long time been a matter of curiosity to lovers of landscape, who have been excited and yet not satisfied by the vague and contradictory reports of explorers. Through the better expression of the brush we can now form some idea of it, Mr. Bierstadt’s pencil being too true and powerful to be questioned.” [3] The ability of Bierstadt’s art to reach a popular audience and early conservationists is a testament to his skill and sensitivity in recording the American landscape.
Notes:
[1] Nancy K. Anderson, Linda S. Ferber, and Helena Wright, Albert Bierstadt: Art & Enterprise (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Brooklyn Museum, 1990), 23.
[2] Mary S. Haverstock, “Can Nature Imitate Art?” Art in America 54 (January–February 1966), 73.
[3] “Sketchings,” The Crayon 7, no. 3 (March 1860), 83.
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