Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School, not an institution but rather an informal group of like-minded painters. The Hudson River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.[1]
Biography
Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He early developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth. In 1851, he began to paint in oils.[2] He studied painting with the members of the Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting.
Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.
Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject[3] and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed was the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc.
Nonetheless, in 1860 he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany;[4] and his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 [5] (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.
In 1882 his studio at Irvington, New York, was destroyed by fire, with many of his pictures.[2]
Existing work
· Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, NH, 1861 at the Smith College Museum of Art
· The Emerald Pool, New Hampshire, ca. 1870 at the Chrysler Museum of Art
· Oregon Trail, 1869 at the Butler Institute of American Art
· Yosemite Valley, 1866 at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas
· Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast, 1870 at the Seattle Art Museum
· The Wolf River, Kansas at the Detroit Institute of Arts
· Several pieces at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
· Alaskan Coast Range, ca. 1889 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· Domes of Yosemite ca. 1871 at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
· Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· Gates of the Yosemite, ca. 1882 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· Indians in Council, California, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· Passing Storm over the Sierra Nevadas ca. 1870 at the San Antonio Museum of Art
· San Francisco Bay, 1871-1873 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
· Sunrise in the Sierras, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
· Sierra Nevada Morning at the Gilcrease Museum
· Sierra Nevada at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, NC
· Mount Tamalpais ca 1873 at the Parthenon in Nashville, TN
· Cho-looke, the Yosemite Fall, 1864 at the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, CA
· Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California, 1865 at the Birmingham Museum of Art
· Indian Canoe ca 1886 at the New Blanton Museum in Austin, TX
· Farallon Island ca. 1887 at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
· Hetch Hetchy Canyon ca 1875 at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
Legacy
· Because of Bierstadt's interest in mountain landscapes, Mount Bierstadt and Bierstadt Lake in Colorado are named in his honor. Bierstadt was probably the first European to visit the summit of Mount Evans in 1863, 1.5 miles from Mount Bierstadt.[6] Bierstadt named it Mount Rosa, a reference to both Monte Rosa above Zermatt and, Rosalie Ludlow, his future wife, but the name was changed from Rosalie to Evans in 1895 in honor of Colorado governor John Evans.
· In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20 commemorative stamps entitled "Four Centuries of American Art", one of which featured Albert Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo.[7] In 2008, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp in its "American Treasures" series featuring Bierstadt's 1864 painting "Valley of the Yosemite." [8]
· "Valley of the Yosemite"[9] also appears in a scene in Terry Gilliam's 1995 film "Twelve Monkeys", accompanied by several doctors singing Blueberry Hill (song).[10]
· William Bliss Baker, another landscape artist, studied under Bierstadt.
Footnotes
1. ^ Picturing America's Natural Cathedrals
1. ^ a b 
"Bierstadt, Albert". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.
3. ^ "Bierstadt, Albert". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
4. ^ xmission.com
5. ^ William Newton Byers, Bierstadt's Visit to Colorado -- Sketching for the famous painting "Storm in the Rocky Mountains", Magazine of Western History, Vol. XI, No. 3, Jan. 1890; page 237.
6. ^ ArtOnStamps.org
8. ^ image of Valley of the Yosemite
9. ^ Twelve Monkeys trivia page at IMDB
References
§ Anderson, Nancy K. et al. Albert Bierstadt, Art & Enterprise, Hudson Hills Press, Inc.: New York, New York, 1990.
§ Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt, Painter of the American West, Harrison House/Harry N. Abrams, Inc.: New York, New York 1988.
External links
§ White Mountain paintings by Albert Bierstadt
§ Museum of Nebraska Art MONA Moment
§ Gallery of Bierstadt's Paintings
§ The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on Albert Bierstadt.
§ Albert Bierstadt Paintings Gallery 345 images online
§ The R.W. Norton Art Gallery: Albert Bierstadt's Biography
