When George Catlin traveled up the Missouri River into present-day Montana, he admired the Native American peoples of the Great Plains and observed the bison herds as one of their […]
Bierstadt: Forerunners to Bierstadt
Bierstadt’s painting The Last of the Buffalo served as a final, desperate call to save a species from near-certain annihilation. But he was not the first—nor the last—to use an […]
Bierstadt: Decimation of the Herds
Bierstadt used art as a platform to denounce the decimation of America’s most iconic and largest mammal. Some of his paintings present the bison as flourishing and others lament the […]
Bierstadt: Stereoscopic Images
In the fall of 1859, an art journal, The Crayon, reported: “Bierstadt has returned lately from the Rocky Mountains…and has brought with him much material in sketches, photographs, and stereoscopic […]
Bierstadt: Lander’s Peak and the Critics
Bierstadt’s early western paintings placed equal emphasis on the extraordinary landscapes and the Native peoples of the West. The artist’s sketches from his journey through the West in 1859 reveal […]
Bierstadt and Public Lands
Bierstadt was an important champion of the Yellowstone region. He also brought attention to the areas that would become Yosemite and Rocky Mountain national parks. Bierstadt first traveled to Yellowstone […]
