Albert Bierstadt, Buffalo Head

Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902) was a German born painter who emigrated to the United States with his family when he was around two years old. He began his artistic career as a primarily self-taught drawing instructor in New Bedford, Massachusetts before returning to Germany in 1853 where he received a more formal painting instruction.

His experience painting the European Alpine peaks provided a stylistic advantage that proved valuable when he journeyed west as a member of Frederick W. Lander’s Honey Road Survey Party in 1859. The party traveled to the Nebraska Territory and the Wind River Range of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Wyoming. Subsequent trips West included visits to Yosemite in 1863 and 1883, and Yellowstone National Park in 1881. His last trip West was in 1889.

As a member of the Hudson River School, a mid-19th Century American Artist’s collective, Bierstadt portrayed vast and untamed landscapes in a picturesque and romantic style. His majestic paintings of Yosemite, the Wind River Range, Yellowstone, and other locations helped him gain renown as one of the premier landscape artists of the American West, and he also drew inspiration from wildlife and Indigenous peoples. He was a charter member of the Boone and Crockett Club, North America’s oldest wildlife and habitat conservation group.

***Note: This image has been adapted from the original painting and extended to fit the scale of a standard poster size.