Albert Bierstadt
The Grizzly Giant Sequoia, Mariposa Grove, Californiacirca 1872-1873

Not on view

Vertical oil painting of a redwood forest with massive cinnamon-red trunks rising from a shadowed forest floor, moss-covered bark, and a pale teal sky glimpsed through the canopy

Artist or Maker: Albert Bierstadt
Germany, Solingen, active United States, 1830-1902
Title: The Grizzly Giant Sequoia, Mariposa Grove, California
Place Made: United States
Date Made: circa 1872-1873
Medium: Oil on paper mounted on board
Dimensions: Canvas: 29 13/16 × 21 5/16 in. (75.72 × 54.13 cm) Frame: 40 1/16 × 32 × 4 1/2 in. (101.76 × 81.28 × 11.43 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Dr. Robert G. Majer
Accession Number: 53.30
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: American Art
Curatorial Notes: In May 1863 Bierstadt and the writer Fitz Hugh Ludlow left New York for the artist’s second trip through the West. Their principal objective was to capture the beauty of Yosemite Valley, which the photographs of Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) had revealed to astonished New Yorkers in 1862. In a drawing room in San Francisco in August, on the eve of their departure for the final leg of their journey there, they again gazed at Watkins’s photographs. Shortly before reaching Yosemite, they and other artist-companions -- Enoch Wood Perry (1831-1915) and Virgil Williams (1830-1886) of San Francisco -- paused near Mariposa to sketch the big trees. Although the museum’s painting was not executed until about ten years later, it should not be surprising that in it Bierstadt borrowed the subject and vantage point of one of Watkins’s early photographs of the Grizzly Giant Sequoia. The size of the museum’s painting indicates that it was not one of the oil sketches Bierstadt made that day. All of his sketches from that trip were fourteen by nineteen inches or smaller. Bierstadt did not employ the twenty-two-by-thirty-inch sheet until 1872, and then only for oil sketches painted in the studio.

The museum’s painting probably dates from Bierstadt’s residence in San Francisco (1871-73). It may be visible in a photograph probably taken in 1873 of the artist’s studio, where it hangs on the wall among rows of studio sketches. Bierstadt often painted the big California trees and exhibited such paintings in 1874 at the National Academy of Design and the Royal Academy. Bierstadt may have used the museum’s painting as a study for his ten-foot-high California Redwoods, painted in about 1875 (private collection). In that painting he corrected the Grizzly Giant’s leaning, noticeable in the oil study. Intended as a record for the artist’s later use, these studies have a fresh realism often sacrificed to dramatic effect in the finished exhibition paintings.
Provenance: The artist, still in 1876. (Sale, Samuel T. Freeman, Philadelphia, “Rare early American furniture, fine period reproductions, silver, etc.,” 15–19 December 1952, lot 620, sold to); [Victor H. Spark (with James Graham and Renaissance Galleries, each a third share), New York, sold 1953 to]; LACMA.
Selected Bibliography: Fort, Ilene Susan and Michael Quick. American Art: a Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
Moure, Nancy Dustin Wall. Western Scene. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1975.
LACMA: Obras Maestras 1750-1950: Pintura Estadounidense Del Museo De Arte Del Condado De Los Angeles. Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2006.

Related Unframed

This Land is Your Land

July 1, 2010

Albert Bierstadt
The Grizzly Giant Sequoia, Mariposa Grove, Californiacirca 1872-1873

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Albert Bierstadt
Germany, Solingen, active United States, 1830-1902
Title: The Grizzly Giant Sequoia, Mariposa Grove, California
Place Made: United States
Date Made: circa 1872-1873
Medium: Oil on paper mounted on board
Dimensions: Canvas: 29 13/16 × 21 5/16 in. (75.72 × 54.13 cm) Frame: 40 1/16 × 32 × 4 1/2 in. (101.76 × 81.28 × 11.43 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Dr. Robert G. Majer
Accession Number: 53.30
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: American Art
Curatorial Notes: In May 1863 Bierstadt and the writer Fitz Hugh Ludlow left New York for the artist’s second trip through the West. Their principal objective was to capture the beauty of Yosemite Valley, which the photographs of Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) had revealed to astonished New Yorkers in 1862. In a drawing room in San Francisco in August, on the eve of their departure for the final leg of their journey there, they again gazed at Watkins’s photographs. Shortly before reaching Yosemite, they and other artist-companions -- Enoch Wood Perry (1831-1915) and Virgil Williams (1830-1886) of San Francisco -- paused near Mariposa to sketch the big trees. Although the museum’s painting was not executed until about ten years later, it should not be surprising that in it Bierstadt borrowed the subject and vantage point of one of Watkins’s early photographs of the Grizzly Giant Sequoia. The size of the museum’s painting indicates that it was not one of the oil sketches Bierstadt made that day. All of his sketches from that trip were fourteen by nineteen inches or smaller. Bierstadt did not employ the twenty-two-by-thirty-inch sheet until 1872, and then only for oil sketches painted in the studio.

The museum’s painting probably dates from Bierstadt’s residence in San Francisco (1871-73). It may be visible in a photograph probably taken in 1873 of the artist’s studio, where it hangs on the wall among rows of studio sketches. Bierstadt often painted the big California trees and exhibited such paintings in 1874 at the National Academy of Design and the Royal Academy. Bierstadt may have used the museum’s painting as a study for his ten-foot-high California Redwoods, painted in about 1875 (private collection). In that painting he corrected the Grizzly Giant’s leaning, noticeable in the oil study. Intended as a record for the artist’s later use, these studies have a fresh realism often sacrificed to dramatic effect in the finished exhibition paintings.
Provenance: The artist, still in 1876. (Sale, Samuel T. Freeman, Philadelphia, “Rare early American furniture, fine period reproductions, silver, etc.,” 15–19 December 1952, lot 620, sold to); [Victor H. Spark (with James Graham and Renaissance Galleries, each a third share), New York, sold 1953 to]; LACMA.
Selected Bibliography: Fort, Ilene Susan and Michael Quick. American Art: a Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
Moure, Nancy Dustin Wall. Western Scene. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1975.
LACMA: Obras Maestras 1750-1950: Pintura Estadounidense Del Museo De Arte Del Condado De Los Angeles. Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2006.

Related Unframed

This Land is Your Land

July 1, 2010