Montclair Art Museum
Montclair, NJ
973-746-5555
http://www.montclairartmuseum.org/
Primal Visions: Albert
Bierstadt "Discovers" America, 1859-1893
"Primal Visions:
Albert Bierstadt 'Discovers' America, 1859-1893," an important exhibition
of the 
work of one of the signature
painters of America's nineteenth-century, opens at the Montclair Art Museum
on November 18, 2001, inaugurating one of the Museum's newly built exhibition
galleries. On view through February 3, 2002, and curated by Associate Curator
Diane P. Fischer, the centerpiece of the exhibition is two major but rarely
exhibited monumental paintings by Bierstadt, Autumn in the Sierras (Kings
River Canyon) (1873), and The Landing of Columbus (1892), lent
to the Museum by the City of Plainfield, New Jersey, where they have been
for close to a century. (above left: Albert Bierstadt, Autumn
in the Sierras (Kings River Canyon), 1873, oil on canvas, 72 x 120 inches,
City of Plainfield, New Jersey)
Primal Visions spans the period
from Bierstadt's first trip to the West in 1859, to the "closing of
the 
frontier" in the 1890s.
In addition to the Plainfield works, Primal Visions includes approximately
fifty paintings, prints, and photographs by Bierstadt and his contemporaries,
including Thomas and Edward Moran, Frederic E. Church, and Eadweard Muybridge,
which dramatically place the Plainfield paintings within the context of
the period. (right: Albert Bierstadt, The Landing of Columbus,
1892, oil on canvas, 80 x 120 inches, City of Plainfield, New Jersey, Gift
of J. Ackerman Coles, 1919)
Primal Visions: Albert Bierstadt "Discovers"
America will close at the Montclair Art Museum
on February 3, 2002, and will tour to the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus,
Ohio, from February 28th to May 12th, and the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery
in Sacramento, California, from June 1st through July 22, 2002.
Read more about the Montclair
Art Museum in Resource Library Magazine
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited above please see America's Distinguished
Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 5/28/11
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