Sunset on the Prairies

Details

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902)
Sunset on the Prairies
signed with conjoined initials 'AB' (lower right)
oil on paper laid down on paperboard
4 ¼ x 7 ½ in. (10.8 x 19.1 cm.)
Painted circa 1861.

Provenance

The artist.
Mrs. Charles Butler, Scarsdale, New York, acquired from the above.
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 19 June 1981, lot 72.
Alexander Gallery, New York, acquired from the above.
David DeFrancesca, Laguna, California.
Overland Trail Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Jim Fowler's Period Gallery West, Scottsdale, Arizona.
John F. Eulich, Dallas, Texas, acquired from the above, 1984.
Sotheby's, New York, 3 December 1998, lot 173, sold by the above.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Literature

J.S. Czestochowski, Georgia O'Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime, exhibition catalogue, Memphis, Tennessee, 2004, pp. 14-15, fig. 2, illustrated.

Exhibited

(Possibly) Paris, France, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 1875, p. 129.

Further details

We would like to thank Melissa Webster Speidel, President of the Bierstadt Foundation and Director of the Albert Bierstadt catalogue raisonné project, for her assistance in the cataloguing of this lot. This work is included in the database being compiled for her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Albert Bierstadt likely painted the present work circa 1861, after his first trip to the American West in 1859. Possibly depicting the Nebraska territory, Sunset on the Prairies is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Georgia O'Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime, accompanying the following passage: "Western space and light were dual interests of O'Keeffe as they had been for many American artists before her. In her autobiography she wrote, 'My first memory is of the brightness of light - light all around,' and on another occasion, 'the color of the dust was bright in the sun light.' Almost as if describing a scene by Albert Bierstadt, she recalled in Texas that 'for days we would see large herds of cattle with their clouds of dust being driven slowly across the plains toward the town.'" (J.S. Czestochowski, Georgia O'Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime, exhibition catalogue, Memphis, Tennessee, 2004, p. 15)

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