BIERSTADT, ALBERT An American landscape-painter. He was born at Dusseldorf, Germany. received a conunon•school education at New. Bedford, Mass.. in 1853-57 studied at the Diisseldorf Academy under Les sing, and at Rome. and in 1858 made a sketch' lug tour in the l'Io•ky namtains. largely in con jun•tion with the expedition of General F. Lander to survey an overland wagon-route. Prom this tour and subsequent visits to the Western Cnited States, he collected materials for his most important works. In 1867. 1878, and 1853 he Europe. Ile was elected a National Academieian in 1860. and received numerous forebm decorations and medals in Austria. Belgium, and Germany. liis studio was at Irvine•ton-on-Hudson. N. V.. until ltis2. and subsequently in New York City. Trained in the Dfisseldorf school of landscape, lie was skillful as a draughtsman. although as a colorist some what hard and dry. The Ditsseldorf method he applied to the interpretation of the vast scenery of the Rockies and the F. a
Church and Thomas Moran introduced a spa •ious, panoramic. manner into American national art. llis study of nature was direct and patient; his rendering of it, despite certain crudities, was never ineffective. Tuekerman declared that no more genuine and grand American work has been produced in landscape art than Bierstadt's ''Rocky Mountains" ( IS6:3). Other noteworthy pictures are "North Fork of the Platte" (1864), "El Capitan. Merced River" (1866), in the Rocky Mountains" (IS66), "Valley of the Yosemite" (1866: collection of the Lenox Li brary, New York City), "Valley of Kern's River" (1S75). "Mount Corcoran, Sierra Nevada" Isis; Corcoran Gallery, Washington. D. C.). and two historical paintings. "The Discovery of the Ihnisen River" and The Settlement of (both in the Capitol at Washington). Consult Tuckerrnan, Book of the Artists (New York, 1S67).