Albert Bierstadt

Born: Solingen, Germany, 7 January 1830

Died: New York, 18 February 1902 in New York

Nationality: German-American


Works by this Artist

Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak
Albert Bierstadt, 1863

Studies

with American artists Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze and Worthington Whittredge in Dusseldorf (1853-57)

Career

1857 – moves to New Bedford, MA

1858 – first exhibition -- National Academy of Design (NAD, New York). Exhibits Lake Lucerne (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

1859 – travels west with Frederick W. Lander’s Honey Road Survey Party making sketches and taking stereoscopic photographs; begins exhibiting at Boston Athenaeum

1860 – exhibits Rocky Mountains, Laramie Peak (untraced) at NAD and becomes member

1861 – begins exhibiting at Brooklyn Art Association

1862 – joins Century Association

1863 – travels to San Francisco, Yosemite Valley, and Oregon with writer Fitz Hugh Ludlow

1864 – stops exhibiting at Boston Athenaeum

1865 – sells The Rocky Mountains to English financier James McHenry for $25,000

1875 – gets commission for US Capitol: Discovery of the Hudson (in situ)

1879 – stops exhibiting with Brooklyn Art Association

Travels

Germany, Switzerland and Italy (1853-57); Europe (1867-71); travels frequently throughout United States, Canada, and Europe; Alaska (1889)

Commissions from

US government

Important Artworks

Domes of the Yosemite, 1867 (Athenaeum, St Johnsbury, VT)

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868 (New Museum of American Art, Washington, DC)

Readings:

Anderson, Nancy K. Albert Bierstadt: Art and Enterprise. Exhibition catalogue. New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1990

Miller, Angela. The Empire of the Eye. Landscape Representation and American Cultural Politics 1825-1875. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1993

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