Bierstadt in Paris

When Bierstadt’s painting The Last of the Buffalo was displayed in Paris in 1889, his urgent message about the looming extinction of American bison was amplified to an international audience.

Bierstadt’s painting, on view at the Paris Salon, was at the center of artistic, cultural, and political discourse about the American West on a global stage. The neighboring Exposition Universelle brought the cultures of the world together around the newly constructed Eiffel Tower.

The American West was represented at the fair by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show which included Native Americans, vaqueros, American cowboys, and a small herd of bison.