Albert Bierstadt

American, 1830 - 1902

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A band of indigenous Americans ride horses toward and through a herd of buffalo, which spreads along a river that winds through plains to mountains in the deep distance in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is lit with golden light that warms the browns and harvest yellow of the landscape. Several dead or injured buffalo lie across the ground close to us, along with the body of one hunter, barely visible between the bodies of two animals. Just beyond the corpses, one hunter rides a rearing white horse as he lifts a spear lined with feathers high over a charging buffalo to our right of center. Facing away from us, the rider has light brown skin and a feather headdress over long dark hair. He wears a pumpkin-orange loincloth and red and orange bands encircle the ankle, thigh, wrist, and upper arm facing us. Sage-green grass grows in tufts on the dirt ground, which is littered with several animal skulls around the charging buffalo and rider. A smaller buffalo looks on from our left, and a prairie dog pokes its head out of hole in the ground in the lower left corner. A little distance away to our right, along the edge of the canvas, seven hunters gallop into the scene, leaning forward over their horses’ necks. The dozen or so buffalo nearby, as well as a fox and two deer, move away from the hunters, headed to our left. Hundreds of buffalo dot the landscape along the banks of the winding river and some wade in the water. A few trees rise on the plain but the land is mostly flat until it reaches the mountains and cliffs along the horizon, which comes halfway up this composition. Forms along the horizon could be a line of clouds or snow-covered moutains in the deep distance. A few wispy white clouds float across the watery blue sky above. The artist signed the work in the lower right corner: “Albert Bierstadt.”
Albert Bierstadt, The Last of the Buffalo, 1888-1889, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mary Stewart Bierstadt [Mrs. Albert Bierstadt]), 2014.79.5

The Last of the Buffalo

Albert Bierstadt · 1888-1889 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.5

We look across the gleaming, forest-green surface of a lake at the foot of tall, jagged mountains in this horizontal landscape painting. The lake is flanked by a steep, gingerbread-brown hill on the left and a shoreline that forms a backward C curving from the lower center around and back along the right side of the composition. Strong sunlight from the upper left illuminates the center of the left-hand hill and the shoreline. The ground to our right is carpeted in rust-red, sage-green, and tan growth and is dotted with boulders. Tall trees with rust-brown trunks, crooked branches, and narrow canopies of caramel-brown and olive-green leaves fill the far end. Closest to us are dead tree trunks jutting out of the water and or lying on a flat, rocky outcropping nearby. Beyond the outcropping is a small black bear wandering down a sliver of sand-colored ground at the water’s edge. The hill on the left is covered with vertical rows of upright jagged boulders and slender, dark green trees marching up its slopes. A narrow, artic-blue waterfall cascades down its right side to empty into the lake. A thick layer of towering blue-gray clouds rises over the hill and lake, stretching back to the looming, snow-covered peaks that nearly brush the top edge of the canvas. The sky around the peak is vivid blue, scattered with high white clouds. The artist signed the lower right, “ABierstadt” with the A and B joined as a monogram.
Albert Bierstadt, Mount Corcoran, c. 1876-1877, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.4

Mount Corcoran

Albert Bierstadt · c. 1876-1877 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.4

The top three-quarters of this horizontal landscape painting is filled with roiling, deeply shadowed clouds that tower over a line of buffalo crossing a grassy meadow below. Small in scale, the buffalo form a line that extends away from us at a diagonal into the distance to our right. Sunlight creates a bright reflection on the stream where the frontmost buffalo crosses, but the other animals are nearly backlit in the raking light. Trees, with branches whipping in the wind, rise along the left side of the painting, and the mountainous landscape to our right is lost in darkness under heavy clouds. The clouds above lighten from navy blue in the lower right corner of the sky to slate blue and white at the center of the painting. Small patches of blue sky are visible between a few breaks in the clouds, and sunlight falls on a cliff-like mountain face in the distance beyond the trees to our left. Another bank of parchment-colored clouds in the upper left corner, closer to us, contrasts with the glimmering light highlighting some of the clouds nearby.
Albert Bierstadt, Buffalo Trail: The Impending Storm, 1869, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, through the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie), 2014.79.3

Buffalo Trail: The Impending Storm

Albert Bierstadt · 1869 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.79.3

From a little above a dirt road, we look past a grove of trees to a broad plain and a lake at the foot of towering, hazy mountains in this horizontal landscape painting. The narrow, teal-blue lake runs from left to right along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition so the hills and mountains take up most of the picture. On the far shore of the lake, steep hills are thick with fern-green trees and growth. Beyond these hills, muted gray and green rocky mountains reach precipitously into the clear, robin’s egg-blue sky so some nearly touch the top edge of the canvas. Snow nestles in the mountain peaks while gauzy mist hovers among the mountain tops. The meadow below is a patchwork of avocado-green and sand-brown fields. An ice-blue stream winds from the lake across the plain while olive-green trees and shrubs dot the fields. Closest to us, in the lower left corner of the painting, small stones and clumps of green grass run along the dirt road, and boulders line it to either side. A band of dark green spanning the road creates a screen a short distance from us, in the lower left quadrant of the composition. Through the trees is a view of minuscule buildings lining the lakeside. In the shadows, under the trees, people camp with a covered wagon covered in white fabric and several animals including a donkey. A red and yellow fire glows, almost lost in the deep shadows of the trees, next to the people. On our right, about a dozen people with a horse-drawn wagon, all tiny in scale, work in the field next to the stream. Farther along the stream, another wagon approaches a covered bridge. On our right and close to us, a dark shadow falls across the landscape. Beyond the shadow, a group of buildings with a church in the center sit on a low hill.
Albert Bierstadt, Lake Lucerne, 1858, oil on canvas, Gift of Richard M. Scaife and Margaret R. Battle, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.50.1

Lake Lucerne

Albert Bierstadt · 1858 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1990.50.1

Albert Bierstadt, Boussod et Valadon, The Last of the Buffalo, 1891, photogravure in black with chine collé on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art), 2015.19.3216

The Last of the Buffalo

Albert Bierstadt, Boussod et Valadon · 1891 · photogravure in black with chine collé on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.3216

Albert Bierstadt, Sketchbook, 1881, bound volume of forty-six graphite drawings, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase with a grant from The Lucelia Foundation and funds given by Anne Barnett Hazel in honor of John Tilghman Hazel, Jr.), 2015.19.5298.1-46

Sketchbook

Albert Bierstadt · 1881 · bound volume of forty-six graphite drawings ·  Accession ID  2015.19.5298.1-46

James Smillie, Edward Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, 1866, steel engraving in black with chine collé on paperboard, Corcoran Collection, 2015.19.3586

The Rocky Mountains

James Smillie, Edward Bierstadt · 1866 · steel engraving in black with chine collé on paperboard ·  Accession ID  2015.19.3586

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Horse Study for "The Last of the Buffalo"

Albert Bierstadt · c. 1888 · oil on paper ·  Accession ID  2014.136.156

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Figure Study for "The Last of the Buffalo"

Albert Bierstadt · 1888 · oil on paper ·  Accession ID  2014.136.154

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Figure Study for "The Last of the Buffalo"

Albert Bierstadt · c. 1888 · oil on paper ·  Accession ID  2014.136.155

Bibliography

1973

  • Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West. New York, 1973.

1981

  • Baigell, Matthew. Albert Bierstadt. New York, 1981.

1991

  • Anderson, Nancy K., and Linda S. Ferber. Albert Bierstadt: Art & Enterprise. Exh. cat. The Brooklyn Museum, 1990.

1996

  • Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 31-33.