Among+the+Sierra+Nevada,+California

Date: 1868
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1977/1977.107.1_2a.jpg?itok=2ypxGe7t width="373" height="225" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/among-sierra-nevada-california-2059"]] || Title: **Among the Sierra Nevada, California **

Artist: **Albert Bierstadt** Born: Solingen, Germany 1830 Died: New York, New York 1902

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 72 x 120 1/8 in. (183 x 305 cm) frame: 96 1/4 x 144 3/8 x 7 1/4 in. (244.5 x 366.7 x 18.4 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum Bequest of Helen Huntington Hull, granddaughter of William Brown Dinsmore, who acquired the painting in 1873 for "The Locusts," the family estate in Dutchess County, New York

Accession: 1977.107.1 || Albert Bierstadt's beautifully crafted paintings played to a hot market in the 1860s for spectacular views of the nation's frontiers. Bierstadt was an immigrant and hardworking entrepreneur who had grown rich pairing his skill as a painter with a talent for self-promotion. He unveiled his canvases as theatrical events, selling tickets and planting news stories—strategies that one critic described as the "vast machinery of advertisement and puffery." A Bierstadt canvas was elaborately framed, installed in a darkened room, and hidden behind luxurious drapes. At the appointed time, the work was revealed to thunderous applause.
 * Exhibition Label: **

This painting was made in London and toured through Europe to St. Petersburg, fueling Europeans' interest in emigration. Buoyed by glowing reviews, Bierstadt then offered the painting to American audiences who could take pride in an American artist's skill and in the natural splendors of their young nation.


 * Suggested Questions: **
 * What is your first impression of this painting? What words would you use to describe it?
 * What about this place makes it a spot you might like to visit?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"Do you think that this is what the West really looks like?" or "Do you think this is a real place?"

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Land and Landscape <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Pre-Visit Graphic Organizer <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Bierstadt Biographies <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Great Pictures by an American Artist <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">For Spacious Skies <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Discovered Lands Invented Pasts <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Albert Bierstadt. Sierra Nevada in California <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Bierstadt in The History of a Reputation <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Bierstadt in Artists of Michigan <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Bierstadt in Art and Enterprise <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 21.45px;">
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Resources: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Artist Biography <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Links: **