Yosemite Valley

Artist Albert Bierstadt American, b. Germany, 1830 - 1902

Dateca. 1865

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsStretcher: 21 3/4 × 30 in. (55.2 × 76.2 cm)
Frame Dimensions: 30 3/4 x 37 3/4 x 3 1/2 in. (78.1 x 95.9 x 8.9 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineThe Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York.

Object number1976.1

On View

On view

Collections

American Paintings & Sculpture

SignedSigned lower left in red: "ABierstadt" with the A and B conjoined

DescriptionAlbert Bierstadt presents the Merced River in the Yosemite Valley, with views of Cathedral Rocks and Bridal Veil Falls on the right and the famed three-thousand-foot granite El Capitan rock formation on the left. Bierstadt has romanticized the view, exaggerating the height of the cliffs by using atmospheric perspective—a hazy “bluing out” of more remote forms—and by lowering our viewpoint, forcing us to look up. The towering cliffs contrast with the much smaller trees in the middle ground, as well as the foreground’s focal points of a fallen tree trunk and small deer. Silhouetted against the calm water, these last elements help to stabilize a slow zig-zag shaped composition, common in Bierstadt’s and other landscape artists’ work. We are drawn from the darkest area at the front right corner along the river bank by the deer and log, to the middle ground trees, to the rocky surroundings and finally to the lightest area in the most distant background. A warm haze overlies much of the idyllic scene. Bierstadt transfers his viewers from the busy East coast to the tranquility of the as yet unconquered West, a cry for Manifest Destiny. This is an image of a more simple and perfect life, and it is a specifically American one.

Born in Germany in 1830, Bierstadt moved with his family to Massachusetts as a one-year-old. While he returned to Europe several times, his association with the New York-based Hudson River School and subsequently with the Rocky Mountain School of artists established him as one of the finest American landscape painters. In 1859, taking advantage of a government survey expedition to the Rockies of Wyoming, he made his first of three trips West. This first trip resulted in a six by twelve foot landscape, painted after his return to New York City. Inspired by the photographs of the Yosemite Valley by Carleton E. Watkins, Bierstadt made a second trip, in summer of 1863, during which he produced numerous oil sketches which formed the basis of larger oils painted back in his New York studio. The Hyde’s view of Yosemite results from this second trip and was followed by a final trip in 1871-73. Bierstadt produced at least twenty-five paintings of Yosemite, nine of which are of the Yosemite Valley.

Bierstadt promoted his own art. Following the example of Frederick Church, he exhibited his large landscapes publically—at a cost of 25¢ per person. Such vistas were highly successful in generating public interest in the West; within a few years there was stagecoach and railroad service to Yosemite, as thousands of tourists were enticed to visit the West.

Text by Penny Howell Jolly, Professor Emerita of Art History, Skidmore College, July 2026
Exhibition History"Masters of the Hudson River School", The Hyde Collection, May 7 - June 19, 1994.

"Family Matters: American Impressionism and Realism," The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, Apr. 27- July 27, 2003.

"A Glens Falls Legacy: The Pruyn Family; A Shared Life: Selections from the Pruyn Family Collection", Charles R. Wood Gallery, The Hyde Collection, June 8 - Aug. 24, 2008.

"50 at 50: Five Decades of Collecting at the Hyde". Wood Gallery, Education Wing, Hyde House, The Hyde Collection. Glens Falls, January 16, 2013 -April 14, 2013Provenance1940's, Mary Hyde Whitney (daughter of Louis F. and Charlotte P. Hyde)
1972, Monroe, CT, Mary Renz (by inheritance)
1976, Glens Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Trust