Tag Archives: artists of the west

Albert Bierstadt in the Wind River Range: 1859

How Art from Our Mountains Changed America

Part One

By Sue Sommers
June 18, 2026

If you’ve spent much time in the northern Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, you might have visited Island Lake. The area is very popular with backpackers and climbers, providing access to Titcomb Basin, Fremont Peak, Indian Pass, and countless high elevation lakes.

Author Photo

This is the view of Island Lake from the main trail leading from Seneca Lake. On the other side of Island Lake, at the extreme left end of the lake, is the rocky island that gives the lake its name. And nearly hidden by the rocky island is a dramatic waterfall.

Author Photo

This is the view from the top of the waterfall on the opposite side of the lake, looking back at the trail.

Who was Albert Bierstadt, and what was his connection to the Wind River Mountains?

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

In 1859, German-American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) had returned from artistic training in Europe and was rising to prominence among the Hudson River School of painters. He decided to join a few other artists tasked with documenting a US Army expedition to the Far West led by Col. Frederick Lander. The purpose of the expedition was to survey and improve the Oregon Trail for the many thousands of people – and their wagons and livestock – heading west. Bierstadt made many sketches and photographs along the trail. His surviving oil and pencil sketches and glass plate negatives capture Native and Euro-American people, encampments, wildlife, and landscapes from the journey.

After he returned to his studio in New York, Bierstadt made this painting of a view high in the Wind River Mountains:

Island Lake, Wind River Range, Wyoming, 1861. Oil on canvas, 27.1875 x 41.25 inches. Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Museum Purchase. 5.79

No one knows for sure how, with whom, or at what point in the expedition Bierstadt might have trekked from the valley floor to this site above 10,000 feet. Some don’t believe that he ever saw Island Lake, and suspect the scene in the painting is a complete invention.

Nor do any of Bierstadt’s existing Lander Survey photographs appear to be from high-elevation sites like Island Lake.  One reason for this could have been the fragile and complex photographic process available to him at that time. By contrast, Bierstadt’s sketching materials, including pencils, paints, and small panels, would have been durable and easy for him to carry or pack on a mule. In any case,  over the months and years that followed, Bierstadt would use his sketches and photographs to help him compose many paintings. Island Lake could have been one of them.

It’s also crucial to keep in mind that artistic conventions during Bierstadt’s time dictated that composition and drama were more important than exact replication.  What similarities and differences do you notice compared to the recent photographs? How do the differences change your experience of the scene?  

Sources and Further Reading

This blog post relies heavily on a landmark article on this subject:

Houston, Jourdan, and Fraser Houston. “The 1859 Lander Expedition Revisited: ‘Worthy Relics’ Tell New Tales of a Wind River Wagon Road.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 49, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 50–72.

Additional sources consulted include:

  • Anderson, Nancy K., and Linda S. Ferber. Albert Bierstadt: Art & Enterprise. New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Brooklyn Museum, 1990.
  • Fischer, Diane P., ed. Primal Visions: Albert Bierstadt “Discovers” America. Montclair, NJ: Montclair Art Museum, 2001.
  • Hassrick, Peter H., ed. Albert Bierstadt: Witness to a Changing West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press in cooperation with the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, 2018.
  • Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West. New York: Harry N. Abrams and the Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, 1974.
  • Lindquist-Cock, Elizabeth. “Stereoscopic Photography and the Western Paintings of Albert Bierstadt.” Art Quarterly 33, no. 4 (1970): 363–64, note 55.
  • Trenton, Patricia, and Peter H. Hassrick. The Rocky Mountains: A Vision for Artists in the Nineteenth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.
  • The Crayon (1859): 26, 161, 287.
  • University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Libraries, “Stereographs.” https://utrgv.libguides.com/earlyphotographs/stereograph
  • University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Libraries, “Glass Plate Photography.” https://utrgv.libguides.com/earlyphotographs/glassplate

Enjoying this series? Join us in August for a presentation on Albert Bierstadt and his time in the Wind River Range by Sue Sommers at the Museum of the Mountain Man.
More details coming soon.