Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902)

Albert Bierstadt’s paintings brought him great fame and fortune early in his career. He was a skilled artist and an ambitious businessman. In his later years, however, his style of painting fell out of favor.

Bierstadt was born in Germany and moved to the United States as a child. He later returned to Germany to study art and train under Emanuel Leutze, a history painter best known for his work Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851), a scene symbolizing American patriotism.

Following those formative years in Europe, Bierstadt increasingly used symbols in his paintings to convey complex messages about American subjects. As more modern trends like Impressionism took hold, Bierstadt’s symbolic and often dramatic creations lost their appeal among buyers and critics.