Collection

Yosemite paintings, framed

Albert Bierstadt first saw Yosemite Valley in 1863, a year before Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant setting the valley aside for public use. Over the next decade he painted it again and again: from Glacier Point, from the valley floor at sunrise and at sunset, at Bridal Veil and Nevada Falls, and along the Merced River. Those paintings helped make the valley famous in the East.

Thomas Hill, born in England, painted Yosemite for much of his career and kept a studio at Wawona, south of the valley. His Nevada Falls and Yosemite Valley hang here beside Bierstadt's.

Bierstadt's Yosemite pictures are wide and full of haze and light, so they read best large, at 36 inches on the long side where the file allows it.

15 works in this collection, dated 1865 to 1890. Most represented: Albert Bierstadt (13) and Thomas Hill (2). Sources include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and Birmingham Museum of Art.