Lot Essay
Sydney Mortimer Laurence was born in 1865 in Brooklyn, New York, and trained at the National Academy of Design School of Art before traveling abroad through the early 1890s. Among the first professional artists to settle in Alaska, Laurence arrived to Juneau in 1903, where he initially worked as a photographer. The artist became enraptured with North America's tallest peak, Mount McKinley (also called Denali), as demonstrated by his numerous depictions, such as the present work.