Albert BierstadtAmerican, 1830–1902Alaskan Coast Range
May one see it?
Yes, receiving visitors
Washington, D.C., United States
RoomLuce Foundation Center, 3rd Floor, 12A
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
Alaskan Coast Range is an 1889 landscape painting by the German American painter Albert Bierstadt that presently hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. While traveling through British Columbia, Bierstadt took a steamship to Alaska in search of more rugged landscapes. He ended up shipwrecked in Loring, Alaska. While sheltering in a nearby Native American settlement, he drew his littoral Alaskan surroundings; this work is most likely an oil sketch made for further detailing.
In the museum's words
Albert Bierstadt traveled through western Canada in 1889 on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He headed to Alaska by steamer in search of "wild places in the mountains," but was shipwrecked in Loring Bay. He lived with the other passengers in Native American huts and filled two books with drawings and paintings of his surroundings. (Anderson and Ferber, Albert Bierstadt: Art and Enterprise, 1990) This painting of the Alaskan coastline is an oil sketch, probably done on the spot as a study for a later work. The cool colors and thin layers of paint evoke the raw atmosphere of the wilderness where Bierstadt found himself stranded.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1967.136.7
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
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