Vern Milligan

American, died 2012

Explore Selected Works

Far below us, a river winds through a valley lined with hazy mountains in this horizontal landscape painting. In the distance, the line of mountains emerges from the left, near the top of the canvas, and marches down toward the center, growing lighter and mistier in the distance. Streaks of olive-green growth drape down their sides, and pale sunlight from the upper right warms their craggy faces, which are painted in tones of peach, tan, taupe, and parchment white with pewter-gray fissures. The mountains move across the canvas and angle way from us, to our right. There, they are overlapped, just off center, by a tree-covered slope that emerges from the right. At its foot is a steel-gray river that winds from the lower right toward the center of the composition. The land sweeps down from the left side, spreading out into meadows that meet the river. They are carpeted in moss green with streaks and patches of rust-brown earth and scattered with clusters of trees painted in tones of celery, olive, and pine green. Closest to us and near the lower left corner of the painting, is a man, tiny in scale, on a flat bluff. He wears a white coat and trousers, and sits hunched on a stool facing our left. He looks toward a grove of trees with pea-green leaves and ginger-brown trunks that tower over him, along the left edge of the composition. He has turned away from a painting on an easel that stands just beyond him, and an open wooden box that sits on the ground behind him. A closed, seafoam-green parasol also lies nearby. Just beyond the lip of the bluff and down in the valley are creamy white dots that suggest livestock. Farther back, near the foot of the mountains, a cluster of buildings sit near the tree line in the meadow. Wispy white clouds drift through the light azure-blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “THOS.MORAN.1864 OP.8.”
Thomas Moran, The Juniata, Evening, 1864, oil on canvas, Gift of Max and Heidi Berry and Ann and Mark Kington/The Kington Foundation, 2010.107.1

The Juniata, Evening

Thomas Moran · 1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2010.107.1

Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.
Thomas Moran, Green River Cliffs, Wyoming, 1881, oil on canvas, Gift of the Milligan and Thomson Families, 2011.2.1

Green River Cliffs, Wyoming

Thomas Moran · 1881 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2011.2.1

We look across a bank of large boulders that give way to a waterfall in the middle distance, behind which a towering mountain marked with a white cross rises near the top of this vertical watercolor landscape. Painted with swirling washes of topaz and powder blue, cream white, and some touches of pale golden yellow, the central mountain ascends amid the clouds that settle around the peaks to either side. Slivers of white along the central and neighboring mountains echo the white cross, which seems to have been made with fallen snow on the face of the central peak. Clouds or fog eddying around the neighboring peaks make the middle distance hazy. Closer to us, some scrubby pine-green trees line a riverbank that feeds a waterfall in the lower third of the composition. The water falls behind the slate-gray boulders hulking in the lower left corner of the paper. A bird flies in the mist near the falls.
Thomas Moran, Mountain of the Holy Cross, 1890, watercolor and gouache over graphite on blue laid paper, Avalon Fund, Florian Carr Fund, Barbara and Jack Kay Fund, Gift of Max and Heidi Berry and Veverka Family Foundation Fund, 2012.28.1

Mountain of the Holy Cross

Thomas Moran · 1890 · watercolor and gouache over graphite on blue laid paper ·  Accession ID  2012.28.1

Thomas Moran, Minerva Terrace, Yellowstone, 1872, watercolor and gouache with graphite on wove paper, Florian Carr Fund, 2012.93.2

Minerva Terrace, Yellowstone

Thomas Moran · 1872 · watercolor and gouache with graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2012.93.2

Thomas Moran, Hot Springs of Gardiner's River, Yellowstone, 1873, watercolor and gouache over graphite on blue paper, Florian Carr Fund, 2012.93.3

Hot Springs of Gardiner's River, Yellowstone

Thomas Moran · 1873 · watercolor and gouache over graphite on blue paper ·  Accession ID  2012.93.3

Thomas Moran, Tower at Tower Falls, Yellowstone, 1872, watercolor and gouache over graphite on blue laid paper, Florian Carr Fund, 2012.93.1

Tower at Tower Falls, Yellowstone

Thomas Moran · 1872 · watercolor and gouache over graphite on blue laid paper ·  Accession ID  2012.93.1