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.
What does progress look like?
Bierstadt made this study for a larger work depicting a pass through the Sierra Nevada mountains, several hundred feet above the Central Pacific Railroad. Here we see the sun rise beyond the distant Washoe Mountains, casting an ethereal glow over Donner Lake. To paint this scene, Bierstadt and his wife set out for San Francisco in July 1871. En route, they crossed the summit of the Sierras only 400 feet north of the wagon road that the doomed Donner Party had failed to reach in 1847.
Gift of Anna Bennett and Jessie Jonas in memory of August F. Jonas, Jr.