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Albert Bierstadt

Born: Solingen, Germany, 7 January 1830
Died: New York, 18 February 1902 in New York
Nationality: German-American
Studies: 

with American artists Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze and Worthington Whittredge in Dusseldorf (1853-57)

Career: 

1857 – moves to New Bedford, MA

1858 – first exhibition -- National Academy of Design (NAD, New York). Exhibits Lake Lucerne (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

1859 – travels west with Frederick W. Lander’s Honey Road Survey Party making sketches and taking stereoscopic photographs; begins exhibiting at Boston Athenaeum

1860 – exhibits Rocky Mountains, Laramie Peak (untraced) at NAD and becomes member

1861 – begins exhibiting at Brooklyn Art Association

1862 – joins Century Association

1863 – travels to San Francisco, Yosemite Valley, and Oregon with writer Fitz Hugh Ludlow

1864 – stops exhibiting at Boston Athenaeum

1865 – sells The Rocky Mountains to English financier James McHenry for $25,000

1875 – gets commission for US Capitol: Discovery of the Hudson (in situ)

1879 – stops exhibiting with Brooklyn Art Association

Travels

Germany, Switzerland and Italy (1853-57); Europe (1867-71); travels frequently throughout United States, Canada, and Europe; Alaska (1889)

Commissions from: 

US government

Important Artworks: 

Domes of the Yosemite, 1867 (Athenaeum, St Johnsbury, VT)

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868 (New Museum of American Art, Washington, DC)