Albert Bierstadt
Few artists did more to popularize the American West than German-born Albert Bierstadt. The enormous canvases he painted from sketches made during several trips to western American landmarks such as the Rocky Mountains and Mount Corcoran in the Sierra Nevada only made his reputation for panoramic landscapes grow. Bierstadt’s travels took him across the United States and Europe, though he freely changed the details of places he painted in order to heighten the drama and excitement of his compositions.
Can you imagine the California of the past?
Bierstadt’s bucolic landscape offers an idealized image of the West as a new American Eden. Cows graze in a broad expanse of fertile fields, open and waiting to be settled. This lush view of the Sacramento River Valley would have convinced viewers—and potential settlers—to come to California. This scene was painted from studies made during Bierstadt’s third western sojourn, when the artist and his wife, Rosalie, traveled to San Francisco on the recently completed transcontinental railroad.
Presented to the City and County of San Francisco by Gordon Blanding
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