Lot Essay
In the years between 1871 and 1892, Thomas Moran made eight journeys to the American West, what he referred to as "the most remarkable scenery." ("The Hayden Expedition", Rocky Mountain News, 1873, quoted in C. Clark Thomas Moran, Texas, 1980) Travelling with explorers to serve as expedition artist, on assignment for various magazines or official government business, or simply for his own pleasure, this landscape inspired Moran to produce watercolors and oils which cemented his career and reputation as a painter of the West.
Moran was fascinated by the land and its colors, and unlike artists who focused on Indian life of the past or man-made technology of the future, Moran painted the scenery in its natural splendor. His work, in this regard, is not unlike that of Albert Bierstadt; however, while Moran did travel to Yosemite, he apparently did not find this area particularly inspirational, and interestingly left this territory to Bierstadt to paint.
Moran's introduction to the West in 1871 was the Yellowstone, and he was in fact the first American artist to see and depict the area which would become the first National Park. En route to meet Dr. F. V. Hayden for the journey, Moran travelled by railroad to the Green River. When he departed from the train, Green River City was the first Western landmark Moran saw and depicted on paper (First Sketch Made in the West at Green River, Wyoming, 1871, Gilcrease Institute.) This important subject was perhaps the initial inspiration for Moran, and one he returned to throughout his career.
Moran painted five versions on a large scale of this particular scene, featuring the large, imposing "butte". According to Steve Good, the present picture is the most ambitious example of the series, one of which is still unlocated. Further, Nancy Anderson, who is organizing a retrospective of Thomas Moran's work for the National Gallery, comments, "The evolution of Moran's Green River imagery came to full fruition in Green River Cliffs, Wyoming.....dramatic plays of light and shadow direct the viewer's eye toward the setting sun, and a reconfigured foreground becomes a stage for an Indian caravan winding its way toward a distant village. An ambitious reworking of a landscape he had first sketched a decade earlier, Green River Cliffs, Wyoming offers insistent assurance that the ancient grandeur that had inspired the earliest chroniclers of the West remained intact." (W. Truettner, et. at., Washington, 1991, The West as America, p. 247) Prang & Co. published a lithograph the same year.
"Moran's western canvases and watercolors depicted areas of great significance to the American public, they conferred historical legitimacy to a land lacking human associations and presented a stage for the unfolding drama of a nation's future. Moran's American landscape could also rise in status by association with historical themes. As America viewed her land, especially the West, as part of a natural historic past destined to determine a great future, Americans began to accept landscape painting in oil and watercolor as an integral and formative element of this destiny." (C. Clark, Thomas Moran: Watercolors of the American West, Texas, 1980, p.35)
This painting will be included in Stephen L. Good and Phyllis Braff's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Moran's work.
Moran was fascinated by the land and its colors, and unlike artists who focused on Indian life of the past or man-made technology of the future, Moran painted the scenery in its natural splendor. His work, in this regard, is not unlike that of Albert Bierstadt; however, while Moran did travel to Yosemite, he apparently did not find this area particularly inspirational, and interestingly left this territory to Bierstadt to paint.
Moran's introduction to the West in 1871 was the Yellowstone, and he was in fact the first American artist to see and depict the area which would become the first National Park. En route to meet Dr. F. V. Hayden for the journey, Moran travelled by railroad to the Green River. When he departed from the train, Green River City was the first Western landmark Moran saw and depicted on paper (First Sketch Made in the West at Green River, Wyoming, 1871, Gilcrease Institute.) This important subject was perhaps the initial inspiration for Moran, and one he returned to throughout his career.
Moran painted five versions on a large scale of this particular scene, featuring the large, imposing "butte". According to Steve Good, the present picture is the most ambitious example of the series, one of which is still unlocated. Further, Nancy Anderson, who is organizing a retrospective of Thomas Moran's work for the National Gallery, comments, "The evolution of Moran's Green River imagery came to full fruition in Green River Cliffs, Wyoming.....dramatic plays of light and shadow direct the viewer's eye toward the setting sun, and a reconfigured foreground becomes a stage for an Indian caravan winding its way toward a distant village. An ambitious reworking of a landscape he had first sketched a decade earlier, Green River Cliffs, Wyoming offers insistent assurance that the ancient grandeur that had inspired the earliest chroniclers of the West remained intact." (W. Truettner, et. at., Washington, 1991, The West as America, p. 247) Prang & Co. published a lithograph the same year.
"Moran's western canvases and watercolors depicted areas of great significance to the American public, they conferred historical legitimacy to a land lacking human associations and presented a stage for the unfolding drama of a nation's future. Moran's American landscape could also rise in status by association with historical themes. As America viewed her land, especially the West, as part of a natural historic past destined to determine a great future, Americans began to accept landscape painting in oil and watercolor as an integral and formative element of this destiny." (C. Clark, Thomas Moran: Watercolors of the American West, Texas, 1980, p.35)
This painting will be included in Stephen L. Good and Phyllis Braff's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Moran's work.