Historic Artists of Yosemite

HISTORIC ARTISTS OF YOSEMITE
By Victoria Chick

This article is not inclusive of all the artists that have made Yosemite a subject but does detail some of the earliest.

The first “fine artist” to visit Yosemite was Thomas Ayers who arrived in 1855. Ayers was brought in by James Mason Hutching who had the idea of publishing a magazine called “California Monthly.” Ayers did two drawings on that trip but returned a year later to draw again. His drawings were turned into engravings for publication in the magazine. The originals were acquired by Admiral James Alden of Boston, who came to California to settle a boundary dispute between the U.S. and Mexico. Alden’s family owned the drawings until 1926 when they gave them as a gift to the Valley of the Yosemite Museum.

Carleton Watkins produced photographic images of Yosemite which became part of the presentation to Congress given by Senator John Conness to convince Congress to set aside and preserve the area as a park. Conness, from California, and Galen Clark, a homesteader in the Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove near Yosemite Valley, lobbied for almost ten years to bring the Yosemite Grant to fruition. It was finally signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, and Yosemite became a California State Park. The history of the artists of Yosemite is not merely a recounting of the paintings, engravings, and etchings they produced, but encompasses politics, big business, and the early movement to set aside spectacular land to be forever enjoyed by the public. Watkins’ photographs were instrumental in getting Congress to understand the beauty and uniqueness of Yosemite at a time before there was a transcontinental railroad and few Easterners had gone by ship to San Francisco, much less taken a rough stagecoach ride from there into the Sierra Mountains.

Thomas Hill (1829 -1908) was born in England but came to the United States as a child. By 1854, he had studied art in Philadelphia and Paris. In 1861 he began living and working in San Francisco but maintained a permanent studio in Yosemite. Thus, he was considered the “Pioneer Artist of Yosemite.” Paintings he did can be seen in the Yosemite Valley Museum but much of his painting inventory was destroyed in the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

The most well-known early artist to paint Yosemite was Albert Bierstadt (1829 – 1902). Bierstadt came to the United States as a child, growing up on the Eastern seaboard. He was a highly successful painter who specialized in dramatic landscapes.

Hearing of the grandeur of the western portion of the continent, Bierstadt took an overland stage trip across the U.S. in 1858, making sketches and developing ideas for huge paintings. In addition to his preference for landscape, Bierstadt studied American Indian culture and included many details of tribal life in his paintings. The drama of Yosemite made it a perfect subject for Bierstadt. He painted many aspects of it – domes, cliffs, and waterfalls, capturing the changing light and atmospheric effects in a grand, romantic way.

Bierstadt made the Western landscape real for people who would never have had the chance to travel and see it in person. His audience was massive. Rather than sell his paintings to individuals, he would take one painting at a time on tour, charging a fee to look at it. Sometimes he kept the fees; sometimes he donated the money to charity. His tours went to major cities in America and Europe. He has been criticized as a showman, but his skill as a painter cannot be denied.

By the time John Muir and conservationist Robert U. Johnson began lobbying for Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove and other land surrounding Yosemite Valley to be preserved as a National Park, artists, through their paintings and publication of their etchings, had attracted the attention of the public, business, and government to specific natural wonders within Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove.

East Coast Printmaker James Smillie (1833 – 1909), an engraver and etcher, made a trip to Yosemite in 1871 where he found numerous views that inspired etchings. Smillie was also a writer and wrote the section on Yosemite for Volume 1 of “Picturesque America” published in 1872. Smillie illustrated the section with 20 of his etchings.

Early visual publications such as “Picturesque America” whetted the appetite for travel after the Civil War. The possibilities for tourism increased due to the completion of railroads which made travel safer, and speedier, and had opened many of the most scenic areas to tourists by also operating hotels and restaurants.

Although Yosemite was one of the first lands set aside as parkland, it was one of the last areas to be reached by train. Horseback and stagecoaches were the usual transportation modes to reach Yosemite until a railroad was completed from Merced to El Portal in 1907.

Another artist, Thomas Moran (1837 – 1926), made his first trip to Yosemite in 1872, followed by six more trips there before 1922. Yosemite’s Moran Point is named in his honor. He was a prolific painter and etcher. A collection of almost 300 of his artworks has been given to the National Park Service and is housed in the Yosemite Museum because Yosemite is the subject of so many. He was working on a painting of Bridle Veil Falls at the time of his death in 1926.

A third printmaker, Charles William Dahlgreen (1864 – 1955), did a series of etchings from his visit to Yosemite Valley. Several of these are in the collection of the Library of Congress.

Muir’s lobbying efforts were realized when 1500 acres of land around Yosemite Valley was declared a National Park in 1890. In 1906 the original Yosemite Grant, making the valley a California State Park, was incorporated into the National Park System.

Although this article is limited to early Yosemite artists, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the work of these, and later, other artists in the early twentieth century, did more than promote the setting aside of lands. Their paintings also served as an advertisement to the public to visit the new parks via railroad and automobile, thus providing income from park fees to help maintain and protect the land.

An amazing aspect of the move to preserve Yosemite is that it marks the only time in U.S. history where the work of fine artists was a driving force in forming opinion, ultimately bringing about the National Park System, an idea that was unique in world governments and served as a model for other countries.

Victoria Chick is a contemporary figurative artist and early 19th/20th century print collector based in Silver City, New Mexico. Visit: https://victoriachick.com/

Victoria appears on Big Blend Radio every 3rd Saturday. Follow the podcast: https://worldofart-victoriachick.podbean.com/

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