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Sunrise in the Sierras
Albert Bierstadt (born Solingen, Germany 1830-died New York City 1902)
ca. 1872
- Medium
- oil on paper mounted on paperboard
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 13 1/2 x 18 7/8 in. (34.3 x 47.9 cm.)
- Culture
- California
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Orrin Wickersham June
- 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
In 1872, Albert Bierstadt traveled deep into Kings River canyon in the South Sierra Nevada with the geologist Clarence King. He created many paintings on this trip, believing that people back East would be fascinated by images of the distant western states. In Sunrise in the Sierras the sunlight bouncing off the tips of the mountains emphasizes the vivid color of the rock against the dark, unfinished foreground. (Anderson and Ferber, Albert Bierstadt: Art and Enterprise, 1990)
