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Gold Mining, Cripple Creek
Ernest Lawson (born Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada 1873-died Miami, FL 1939)
1929
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 40 x 50 1/8 in. (101.6 x 127.4 cm)
- Culture
- Colorado
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Ernest Lawson chose to crop the view of Cripple Creek Mining Camp in Colorado so that the craggy mountain overpowers the space. When Lawson came west from New York City, he had trouble with the vastly different landscape, and complained that "he couldn't feel the place, . . . it was too bleak [and] forbidding." He fought against the dizziness and shortness of breath brought on by Colorado's high altitudes, and crafted numerous scenes of the dramatic landscape. This painting won Lawson a prize at the National Academy of Design, the last major award of his career. (Leeds, Ernest Lawson, 2000)
