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Simmons Collection |
Albert Bierstadt
German / American, 1830-1902
Niagara,
1869
oil on canvas
49” x 35”
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Albert
Bierstadt, well known for his Hudson River scenes and his New
World landscapes, painted one of the finest pictures in the Simmons
Collection, Niagara in 1869.
German born (1830) but reared in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Bierstadt
went back to Germany for his art training. Upon his return to
America, he joined a government expedition to the West and traveled
across the Missouri, through Nebraska, to Wyoming's Wind River
Range. For the remainder of his life, he painted grandiloquent
views of the West, California, and Yosemite Valley
One of many views of Niagara Falls, considered America's Greatest
Wonder, this picture shows the Canadian Falls. It was painted
from an imaginary viewpoint, perhaps inspired by a photograph
taken by Bierstadt's brother, just below Goat Island, which separates
the American from the Canadian Falls.
Bierstadt emphasized aspects of the Falls dear to Romantic painters:
the plunging water, dramatic rocks, and the mist from the gorge,
For years, this painting hung in the Magnolia Room, where generations
of students ate their lunch and, perhaps, contemplated the energy
of the falls and the sheer beauty of the painting.
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