- Term
Albert Bierstadt
- Alternate Term
Bierstadt, Albert
- Occupation/Role
artist
- Nationality/Ethnicity
born Germany, active United States
- Date
1830-1902
- Remarks
Albert Bierstadt was born in 1830, in Solingen, Germany. In 1831 his family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Between 1853 and 1857 he went back to Germany and studied painting in the Düsseldorf school of painting. In 1859, he visited the American West in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government. He returned from the trip with sketches which become foundation of many of his paintings. In 1863 he returned to the West again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow. Bierstadt would later marry Ludlow's wife. Bierstadt is best known for large, highly romanticized landscapes of the American West, very popular in the 1860s. From 1871 to1873, he resided in California, though he continually traveled, seeking field studies for his paintings. Plagued by critical disfavor, he died in 1902, largely forgotten.
- See Also