Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)
A member of Frederick Lander's 1858 government survey expedition to the Rocky Mountains, landscape painter Albert Bierstadt became one of the most celebrated and financially successful artists of his time. His depictions of the spectacular natural scenery of the American West (as well as Europe, Canada, Alaska, and the Bahamas) made places that were then largely unknown to most Americans vividly real. Bierstadt's vibrant, detailed, and often highly dramatic works seized the public imagination, visually chronicling the ongoing westward expansion of the United States, one of the most important historical developments of the 19th century.
Trained at the Academy in Düsseldorf, the German-born Bierstadt produced highly finished works that manage to convey the almost inconceivable geographic grandeur of the places he visited while at the same time incorporating specific details that generate excitement and evoke a strong sense of place. In creating his monumental canvases, Bierstadt chose to depart from exact topographical accuracy to heighten their symbolic, spiritual, and dramatic effects, but nevertheless relied heavily upon the plein air landscape studies he made in his travels -- fresh and often intimate works that are highly prized in their own right today.