Questroyal 2009

Albert Bierstadt ( 1830 – 1902 ) Plate 2 Wooded Hillside Oil on canvas 18 11 / 16 x 27 3 / 8 inches Signed lower left: ABierstadt (artist’s monogram) provenance Private collection, NewYork Of the romantic landscapists of the late nineteenth century, few are more closely identified with the American scene than Albert Bierstadt. mitchell a. wilder, founding director of the Amon Carter Museum, 1972 1 Mr. Bierstadt was perhaps more popular and widely known among people at large than is any American painter of the present generation. The London Outlook, 1902 2 Capturing the Beauty of the AmericanWest Albert Bierstadt’s landscapes are legendary. His large canvases exempli- fied the romantic grandeur of the American countryside and inspired a nation that was embracing its Manifest Destiny. The public was so taken by Bierstadt’s sun-dappled scenery that the New York Daily News declared that Bierstadt’s canvases were painted “in an Eldorado, in a distant land of gold; heard of in a song and story; dreamed of, but never seen.” 3 Praise for Bierstadt extends to contemporary critics, who claim that he “was a skillful, compelling magician with palette and paintbrush” 4 who “often elevated and exhilarated them [the public] and made them proud of their country and its West.” 5 — sjs Bierstadt’s paintings are found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and Fogg Art Museum. 1 Mitchell A.Wilder, “Acknowledgments,” in A Bierstadt (FortWorth, Tex.: Amon Carter Museum, 1972 ), p. 3 . 2 The London Outlook , March 1, 1902 . 3 NewYork Daily News , May 25, 1865 . 4 Gerald L. Carr, “Albert Bierstadt: A Larger Perspective,” in Bierstadt’sWest (NewYork: Gerald Peters Gallery, 1997 ), p. 7 . 5 Gordon Hendricks, Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the AmericanWest (NewYork: Harry N. Abrams, 1974 ), p. 9 .