Albert Bierstadt

(American, 1830-1902)

American painter Albert Bierstadt was the premier painter of American West landscapes during the Westward Expansion of the 19th century. Born in Prussia, his family moved to the United States when he was just a year old, residing in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Bierstadt showed a penchant for art at an early age and could often be found creating crayon sketches. By age 21, his medium of choice was oil painting.

Upon his return to Prussia in 1853, Bierstadt spent several years studying art in Düsseldorf. He returned to New Bedford in 1857, where he taught drawing and painting before devoting himself full-time to painting. Bierstadt began painting landscapes of New England and upstate New York. As a member of the Hudson River School, he captured the craggy landscape and flowing river with a romantic, luminous style. Bierstadt is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School. In 1867, Bierstadt traveled to London, where he showed two landscape paintings at a private exhibition for Queen Victoria. After traveling through Europe, where he deepened his technical skills, he painted his renowned Yosemite Valley series. This led to many commissions by railroads and other explorers who asked him to join their westward travels.

In 1876, Bierstadt moved his wife to Nassau in the Bahamas to deal with her illness. Although he continued traveling and painting after her death in 1893, his work dropped in popularity. Bierstadt was often criticized for his entrepreneurial approach to his art; additionally, many of his paintings were lost in an 1882 fire. After he passed away on February 8, 1902, there was a renewed interest in his works, including an exhibition of small-scale oil paintings in the 1960s. During the course of his prolific career, Bierstadt completed over 500 paintings, many of which are held in collections at museums across the United States.