Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the

Westward Expansion The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independe ...

to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century. Bierstadt was born in

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

. He became part of the second generation of the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called '' luminism''. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

Early life and education

Bierstadt was born in

Solingen Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366 ...

, Rhine Province,

on January 7, 1830. He was the son of Christina M. (Tillmans) and Henry Bierstadt, a cooper. His older brothers were prominent stereo view photographers

Edward Bierstadt Edward Bierstadt (September 11, 1824 – June 15, 1906) was a photographer of portraits and landscapes as well as an engraver in the United States. Early life Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Rhine Province, Prussia on September 11, 1824. He ...

and

Charles Bierstadt Charles Bierstadt (1819–1903) was an American photographer who specialized in stereoscopic views. Biography Bierstadt was born at Solingen, Prussia, November 28, 1819, a son of Henry Bierstadt. He was the older brother of the landscape painte ...

. Albert was just a year old when his family immigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1831. He made clever

crayon A crayon (or wax pastel) is a stick of pigmented wax used for writing or drawing. Wax crayons differ from pastels, in which the pigment is mixed with a dry binder such as gum arabic, and from oil pastels, where the binder is a mixture of wax a ...

sketches in his youth and developed a taste for art. In 1851, Bierstadt began to paint in oils. He returned to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

in 1853 and studied painting for several years in Düsseldorf with members of its informal school of painting. After returning to New Bedford in 1857, he taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself full-time to painting.

Career

Albert Bierstadt - Rocky Mountain Landscape - Google Art Project

In 1858, Bierstadt exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy. Bierstadt began painting scenes in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

and upstate New York, including in the

Hudson River Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to Yo ...

. He was part of a group of artists known as the

. In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of

Frederick W. Lander Frederick William Lander (December 17, 1821 – March 2, 1862) was a transcontinental United States explorer, general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and a prolific poet. Birth and early years Lander was born in Salem, Massachu ...

, a

land surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is c ...

for the U.S. government, to see those western American landscapes for his work. He returned to a studio he had taken at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York with sketches for numerous paintings he then finished. In 1860, he was elected a member of the

; he received medals in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, and Germany. In 1863, Bierstadt traveled West again, this time in the company of the author

Fitz Hugh Ludlow Fitz Hugh Ludlow, sometimes seen as Fitzhugh Ludlow (September 11, 1836 – September 12, 1870), was an American author, journalist, and explorer; best known for his autobiographical book '' The Hasheesh Eater'' (1857). Ludlow also wrote about h ...

, whose wife he later married. The pair spent seven weeks in the

Yosemite Valley Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Hal ...

. Throughout the 1860s, Bierstadt used studies from this trip as the source for large-scale paintings for exhibition and he continued to visit the American West throughout his career. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West and accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

to those who had not seen them. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

(1861 to 1865), Bierstadt was drafted in 1863 and paid for a substitute to serve in his place. By 1862, he had completed one Civil War painting ''Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War'' based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861. That painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. The painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observed that the painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience." The Last of the Buffalo

Financial recognition confirmed his status: ''

The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak ''The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak'' is an 1863 landscape oil painting by the German-American painter Albert Bierstadt. It is based on sketches made during Bierstadt's travels with Frederick W. Lander's Honey Road Survey Party in 1859. The ...

'', completed in 1863, was purchased for $25,000 in 1865, the equivalent of almost $400,000 in 2020. In 1867, Bierstadt returned to Europe, arriving in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

."Bierstadt, Albert"
National Gallery of Art. Retrieved February 2, 2018. He then travelled through Europe for the next two years, painting new works while also cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his art on the continent. For example, he painted '' Among the Sierra Nevada, California'' in his Rome studio, displaying it in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and London before having it shipped to the U.S. His exhibition pieces both impressed European audiences and furthered the idea of the American West as a land of promise during a period when European emigration to the U.S. was increasing. Bierstadt's choice of grandiose subjects was matched by his entrepreneurial flair. His exhibitions of individual works were accompanied by promotion, ticket sales, and, in the words of one critic, a "vast machinery of advertisement and puffery." Bierstadt's popularity in the U.S. remained strong during his European tour. The publicity generated by his

paintings in 1868 led a number of explorers to request his presence as part of their westward expeditions. The

Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

also commissioned him to visit and paint the Grand Canyon and surrounding region. Rosalie Osborne Bierstadt, standing, unknown date, William Kurtz

Rosalie Osborne Bierstadt, standing, unknown date, William Kurtz

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the

romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

evident in his choice of subjects and for his use of light, which they found excessive. Some critics objected to Bierstadt's paintings of Native Americans based on their belief that including Indigenous Americans "marred" the "impression of solitary grandeur." His wife, Rosalie, was diagnosed with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

in 1876, and Bierstadt spent increasing amounts of time with her in the warmer climate of

Nassau Nassau may refer to: Places Bahamas *Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence Canada *Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792 *Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...

in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

until her death in 1893. He also maintained travel between the western United States,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and his studio in New York. Though his painting career continued later into his life, Bierstadt's work fell increasingly out of critical favor and was increasingly attacked for its theatrical tone. In 1882, a fire destroyed Bierstadt's studio at Irvington, New York and, with it, many of his paintings. Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Yet by the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was buried at the

Rural Cemetery A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. They were typically built one to five ...

in New Bedford, Massachusetts and remained largely forgotten for nearly 60 years.

Posthumous reception

Interest in Bierstadt's work was renewed in the 1960s with the exhibition of his small oil studies. Modern opinions of Bierstadt have been divided. Some critics have regarded his work as gaudy, oversized, extravagant champions of Manifest Destiny. Others have noted that his landscapes helped create support for the

conservation movement The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the ...

and the establishment of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowst ...

. His work has been placed in a favorable context, as stated in 1987: On the other hand, his work has been also been criticized as largely an imaginary depiction of nature, and even "souless" in its execution.

Existing work

* 1853 – ''Majesty of the Mountains'' * 1855 – ''The Old Mill'' * 1855 – ''The Portico of Octavia'' * 1855 – ''Westphalia'' * 1858 – ''Lake Lucerne'', c. 1853, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art,

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

* 1859 – ''The Wolf River, Kansas'', c. 1859, oil on canvas,

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, Michigan * 1861 – ''Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, NH'', Smith College Museum of Art, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts * 1863 – ''

'', oil on canvas,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, New York * 1864 – ''Cho-looke, the Yosemite Fall'', oil on canvas,

Timken Museum of Art The Timken Museum of Art is a fine art museum, established in 1965 and located at 1500 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, close to the San Diego Museum of Art. History The groundwork for the museum was laid in 1951 when Walter ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

, California * 1864 – '' Valley of the Yosemite'', oil on paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts *1865 - ''Looking Down Yosemite Valley'',

Birmingham Museum of Art The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. It has one of the most extensive collections of artwork in the Southeastern United States, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts repres ...

, Alabama * 1866 – ''Yosemite Valley'', Oil on canvas on panel-back stretcher,

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, Cleveland, Ohio * 1866 – ''On the Hudson River Near Irvington'', 1866–70, oil on paper,

Berkshire Museum __NOTOC__ The Berkshire Museum is a museum of art, natural history, and ancient civilization that is located in Pittsfield in Berkshire County, Massachusetts ( United States). History The Berkshire Museum, founded by local paper magnate Zenas C ...

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

* 1866 – ''

A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie ''A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie'' is an 1866 landscape oil painting by German American, German-American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) which was inspired by sketches created on an 1863 expedition. Bierstadt traveled to the Sou ...

'', oil on canvas, Brooklyn Museum, New York City, New York * 1868 – ''Connecticut River Valley, Claremont, New Hampshire'', 1868, oil on canvas,

* 1868 – ''In the Sierras'',

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

* 1868 – '' Among the Sierra Nevada, California'', Smithsonian American Art Museum,

* 1869 – ''Glen Ellis Falls'', oil on canvas, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, New Jersey * 1870 - ''Sierra Nevada Morning'', oil on canvas,

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

* 1870 – '' Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast'', oil on canvas,

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

, Seattle, Washington * 1871 – ''Domes of Yosemite'', c. 1871,

St. Johnsbury Athenaeum The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum (often written ''St. Johnsbury Athenæum'') is a combined library and art gallery, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The building in which it is housed is architecturally and historically significant because of its construction ...

, St. Johnsbury, Vermont * 1874 – ''Giant Redwood Trees of California'', c. 1874, oil on canvas,

* 1875 – '' Mount Adams, Washington'', 1875, oil on canvas,

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

* 1876 – ''Mount Corcoran'', c. 1876–77, oil on canvas,

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

* 1888 – '' The Last of the Buffalo'', oil on canvas,

* 1889 – '' Alaskan Coast Range'', c. 1889, Smithsonian American Art Museum,

* 1891 – ''The Last of the Buffalo'', c. 1891, vintage photogravure, Valley Fine Art Gallery,

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Moun ...

* 1895 – ''The Morteratsch Glacier Upper Engadine Valley – Pontresina''

Selected paintings

File:Albert Bierstadt - Roman Fish Market. Arch of Octavius - Google Art Project.jpg, Roman Fish Market. Arch of Octavius.

De Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the California Pala ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

File:Albert Bierstadt - Guerrilla Warfare.jpg, ''Guerilla Warfare, Civil War'' by Albert Bierstadt, 1862, Century Association, New York, NY File:Bierstadt Albert Staubbach Falls Near Lauterbrunnen Switzerland.jpg, ''Staubbach Falls, Near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland'', 1865 File:Bierstadt Albert - Yosemite Valley.jpg, ''Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Park'', c. 1868,

Oakland Museum The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cal ...

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

File:HRSOA AlbertBierstadt-Storm in the Mountains.jpg, ''Storm in the Mountains'', c. 1870, Museum of Fine Art,

Boston, MA Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

File:1875, Bierstadt, Albert, Mount Adams, Washington.jpg, '' Mount Adams, Washington'', 1875,

File:Albert Bierstadt - Mount Corcoran.jpg, ''

Mount Corcoran Mount Corcoran is a mountain summit located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. It is situated on the boundary between Tulare County and Inyo County, as well as the boundary between Sequoia National Park and John Mui ...

'', c. 1876–77,

File:Gosnold at Cuttyhunk.jpg, ''Gosnold at Cuttyhunk'' (c. 1858),

New Bedford Whaling Museum The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States that focuses on the history, science, art, and culture of the international whaling industry, and the "Old Dartmouth" region (now the city of New Bedford and ...

New Bedford, MA New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American pe ...

File:Albert Bierstadt - The Marina Piccola, Capri.jpg, ''The Marina Piccola, Capri'' (1859),

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

File:Albert Bierstadt - Indians Spear Fishing - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Indians Spear Fishing'', 1862 File:Albert Bierstadt - The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak.jpg, ''

'' (1863),

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

File:Looking Down Yosemite-Valley.jpg, ''

Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California ''Looking Down the Yosemite Valley, California'' is an 1865 painting by the German-American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902). It was Bierstadt's first large-scale Yosemite picture, a subject for which he would become well known. It present ...

'' (1865),

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

File:Albert Bierstadt 001.jpg, ''Lake Tahoe'' (1868),

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

File:Sierra Nevada Albert Bierstadt circa 1871.jpeg, ''Sierra Nevada'' (c. 1871–1873),

Reynolda House Museum of American Art The Reynolda House Museum of American Art displays a premiere collection of American art ranging from the colonial period to the present. Built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds To ...

Winston-Salem, North Carolina Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in ...

. File:Albert Bierstadt - A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

'' (1866), Brooklyn Museum, New York File:Albert Bierstadt - California Spring - Google Art Project.jpg, ''California Spring'', 1875,

File:Albert Bierstadt - Light in the Forest.jpg, ''Light in the Forest'', unknown date File:Albert Bierstadt - Valley of the Yosemite - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Valley of the Yosemite'', 1864, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston File:Sunrise on the Matterhorn MET DT218107.jpg, '' Sunrise on the Matterhorn'', Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Albert Bierstadt, Estes Park and Longs Peak, circa 1876.jpg, ''Estes Park, Long's Peak,'' 1877,

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...

(on loan from the Denver Public Library) File:Emerald Sea - Albert Bierstadt.jpg, ''Emerald Sea'' (or ''The Shore of the Turquoise Sea''), 1878, Manoogian Collection, Detroit, U.S. File:Albert_Bierstadt_-_Giant_Redwood_Trees_of_California_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, '' Giant Redwood Trees of California'', 1874,

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United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Legacy and honors

Bierstadt Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, USA

* Because of Bierstadt's interest in mountain landscapes,

Mount Bierstadt Mount Bierstadt is a mountain summit in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The fourteener is located in the Mount Evans Wilderness of Pike National Forest, south by east ( bearing 171°) of the Town of Geo ...

and Bierstadt Lake in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

are named in his honor. Bierstadt was probably the first European to visit the summit of

Mount Evans Mount Evans is the highest peak in the Mount Evans Wilderness in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent 14,271-foot (4,350 m) fourteener is located southwest by south ( bearing 214°) of Idaho Springs in Clear C ...

in 1863, 1.5 miles from Mount Bierstadt. Bierstadt named it Mount Rosa, a reference to both

Monte Rosa : , other_name = Monte Rosa massif , translation = Mount Rose , photo = Dufourspitze (Monte Rosa) and Monte Rosa Glacier as seen from Gornergrat, Wallis, Switzerland, 2012 August.jpg , photo_caption = Central Mon ...

above

Zermatt Zermatt () is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a year-round population of about 5,800 and is classified as a town by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO) ...

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 The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

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''. In 2008, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp in its "American Treasures" series featuring Bierstadt's 1864 painting ''Valley of the Yosemite.'' * William Bliss Baker, another landscape artist, studied under Bierstadt.

References

External links

*
Albert Bierstadt
(albertbierstadt.org)
Albert Bierstadt Paintings
at fineartamerica.com

A finding aid to the Albert Bierstadt letter collection, 1880–1893 in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

MONA Moment, Museum of Nebraska Art
Gallery of Bierstadt's Paintings

��Overview of an archival collection on Albert Bierstadt.
Albert Bierstadt Paintings Gallery
��345 images online

at The R.W. Norton Art Gallery
Giant Redwood Trees' will fall at Berkshire Museum despite interpretive value"
''

The Berkshire Eagle ''The Berkshire Eagle'' is an American daily newspaper published in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and covering all of Berkshire County, as well as four New York communities near Pittsfield. It is considered a newspaper of record for Berkshire County, ...

'', June 30, 2018
Albert Bierstadt
WikiArt * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bierstadt, Albert 1830 births 1902 deaths 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters American landscape painters Artists of the American West Prussian emigrants to the United States Hudson River School painters Luminism (American art style) People from Solingen People from the Rhine Province People from Irvington, New York Düsseldorf school of painting Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters