Thomas Moran, Green River Cliffs, Wyoming, 1881, National Gallery of Art, Gift of the Milligan and Thomson Families

When Moran journeyed west for the first time in 1871, his sights were set on Yellowstone, but the trail to the land of geysers passed through another remarkable landscape--one that would become as closely associated with Moran as Yellowstone--the Green River Valley of Wyoming. Once the site of the fur trappers' annual rendezvous, Green River had more recently served as the western terminus for the Union Pacific Railroad. By the time Moran arrived, the burgeoning town on the banks of the river could boast a schoolhouse, church, hotel, and brewery. Exercising a degree of artistic license worthy of Turner, Moran erased all signs of commercial development, concentrating instead on the multicolored buttes rising above the river.

The dazzling colors of the sculpted cliffs and an equally colorful band of Indians are the focus of this stunning painting. In a bravura display of artistic license, Moran erased the reality of advancing civilization, conjuring instead an imagined scene of a pre-industrial West that neither he nor anyone else could have seen in 1871.

In 2011 the National Gallery of Art acquired Moran's Green River Cliffs,  Wyoming, a gift of the Milligan and Thomson Families.The dramatic landscape is presented in a special installation on the main floor of the West Building from March 4 through June 26, 2011.