The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 14, 2024

Mount Starr King, Yosemite

Mount Starr King, Yosemite

1866
(American, 1830–1902)
America, 19th century
oil on canvas on panel-back stretcher
Framed: 135.3 x 181 x 15.6 cm (53 1/4 x 71 1/4 x 6 1/8 in.); Unframed: 97 x 142.3 cm (38 3/16 x 56 in.)
Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection 1922.684
Location: 206 American Landscape

Did You Know?

Highly successful, Bierstadt built a mansion and named it Malkasten, a German word meaning “paintbox.”

Description

During the summer of 1863, Bierstadt visited Yosemite Valley in California and made numerous sketches. Back in his New York studio, he used them to produce many majestic paintings, including this view of the distant granite peak Mount Starr King. Such scenes thrilled East Coast audiences and helped encourage early movements to safeguard natural wonders. In 1864, President Lincoln signed a bill preserving Yosemite as public property; it became a national park in 1890.

Bierstadt included two Native Americans with a packhorse in his composition, and their presence references the fact that Indigenous peoples had inhabited or seasonally visited the region for millennia. Over time, various government and military agencies dispossessed them of these ancestral lands. Although no longer residents in the national park, descendants of the seven Indigenous nations with ties to Yosemite persevered to live in neighboring areas.
  • Chester G. Cutter, Nyack, NY (bought from artist)
    Frank E. Marshall, Philadelphia, PA
    1922
    (Vose Gallery, Boston, MA)
    1922-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • null
    Richardson, Edgar P. American Romantic Painting. Edited by Robert Freund. New York: E. Weyhe, 1944. Reproduced: p. 25, cat. 203
    Hendricks, Gordon. "The First Three Western Journeys of Albert Bierstadt." The Art Bulletin. 46:3 (September, 1964). pp. 333-365. Mentioned: p. 346; Reproduced: fig. 16
    Talbot, William S. "American Visions of Wilderness." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 4 (1969): 151-66. Reproduced: p. 162, fig. 12; Mentioned: p. 163 25152270
    Talbot, William S. "American Visions of Wilderness." The Living Wilderness. 33:108 (Winter, 1969). pp. 14-25. Reproduced: p. 22, fig. 6
    Adams, Celeste, Rita Myers, and Adele Z. Silver. An Introduction to American Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1972. Mentioned: p. 8; Reproduced: p. 9
    "A Check List. American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in the Cleveland Museum of Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 1 (1973): 21-35 Reproduced: Front cover (detail); Mentioned: p. 22, no. 16 25152465
    Talbot, William S. "American Landscape Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art." Antiques. 104:5. pp. 906-917. Reproduced:
    Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1973. Reproduced: pp. 111-175, 321-324, illus. CL-186
    Startz, Jane. American Adventures: A Filmstrip History of the United States. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Scholastic Magazines, 1973.
    Johnson, Mark M. "American Landscapes. . .Scenes as Divergent as the Land Itself." Arts and Activities. 82:4 (December, 1977). pp. 28-32. Reproduced: p. 29, fig. 2
    Talbot, William. "Indian Summer by Jasper F. Cropsey." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 58, no. 3 (1980): 150-61. Mentioned: p. 158; Reproduced: p. 159, fig. 11 41504663
    Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 132 archive.org
    Robertson, Bruce. "Frederic A. Whiting: Founding the Museum with Art and Craft." In Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 47
    Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 12
    Turner, Evan H. Foreward to Catalogue of Photography, by Tom E. Hinson, (ix-xii). Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Mentioned: p. xi
    Coudert, Marie-Claude. La Mythologie de l'Ouest Dans l'Art Américain, 1830-1940. Edited by Laurent Salomé and Joan Carpenter Troccoli. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2007. Reproduced: p. 137, fig. 24.; Mentioned: p. 138
    Adams, Henry. What's American About American Art?: A Gallery Tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. Reproduced: p. 76 - 77
    Cole, Mark, "Picture Perfect", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 48 no. 8, October 2008 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 9 archive.org
    Green, Tyler. Emerson's Nature and the Artists: Idea As Landscape, Landscape As Idea. Munich: Prestel, 2021. Reproduced: P. 23, fig. 8
  • Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (9/.28/2007 - 1/7/2008) and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes (2/18/2008 - 5/18/2008): "The Mythology of the American West"
    The Mythology of the American West. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Rouen, France (organizer) (September 28, 2007-January 7, 2008); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes, France (February 18-May 18, 2008).
    The Artist in the American West, 1800-1900. Santa Fe Musuem of Art (co-organizer).
    A Retrospective Exhibition: Albert Bierstadt 1830-1902. Santa Barbara Museum of Art (organizer) (August 5-September 13, 1964).
    Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, A Retrospective Exhibition: Albert Bierstadt 1830-1902 (5 August-13 September 1964), cat. no. 27, illus. as Starr King Mountain, California.
    American Artists Discover America. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (February 2-25, 1946).
    Oberlin, Ohio, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, American Artists Discover America (2-25 February 1946), cat. no. 4, illus. p. 12 as Starr King Mountain, California, catalogue appears in Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum (February 1946), vol. 3, no. 1.
    The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (co-organizer) (February 15-March 25, 1945); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (April 17-May 18, 1945).
    Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition (15 February-25 March 1945); traveled to New York, Whitney Museum of American Art (17 April-18 May 1945); cat. no. 13 as Starr King Mountain, California, illus. p. 108.
    The World of the Romantic Artist: A Survey of American Culture from 1800-1875. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (organizer) (co-organizer) (December 28, 1944-January 28, 1945).
    Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, The World of the Romantic Artist: A Survey of American Culture from 1800-1875 (28 December 1944-28 January 1945), cat. no. 45, p. 29 as Starr King Mountain, California.
    Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916).
    Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Catalogue of The Inaugural Exhibition (6 June-20 September 1916), cat. no. 2 as Starr King Mountain, California.
    Santa Fe, Fine Arts Museum of New Mexico, The Artist in the American West, 1800-1900 cat. no. 2, illus. as Starr King Mountain, California.
  • {{cite web|title=Mount Starr King, Yosemite|url=false|author=Albert Bierstadt|year=1866|access-date=14 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1922.684