Descripción
THE FOUNDATIONAL DOCUMENT OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE. First edition. Boston: Louis Prang and Company, [1876]. Folio (21" x 17"). With 15 chromolithographs (each 9 3/4" x 14") (one a proof plate; all framed) in addition to 2 maps and the accompanying text. Bound in the publisher's red cloth portfolio. Moran's imagery revealed the scale and splendor of that still untouched landscape and provided evidence of the need to establish the first national park. Based on Moran's work during Hayden's 1871 expedition to northwestern Wyoming, the fifteen views were the first imagery of the region to become Yellowstone National Park. Louis Prang was the finest color-printer of his day, and he declared Moran's Yellowstone series his masterpiece. In 1876, it was undoubtedly the most elaborate and successful work of chromolithographic printing undertaken in the United States. The work's publication marked the beginning of Prang's dominance of the finest American chromolithographic work in the last quarter of the century (Reese). In his definitive book on chromolithography, Democratic Art, Peter Marzio writes: ".each chromo is a masterpiece. This is Prang's greatest work and represents the high tide of chromolithography in America. Moran's painting technique, grounded by an apprenticeship in commercial printshops and refined by his admiration for Turner, was perfectly suited to the demands of color printing from stone, and he remains to this day one of the most gifted artists to have worked in the medium." Born in Bolton, England, Moran immigrated to the United States in 1844. He received his first art instruction from his elder brother Edward and later found employment as an illustrator in New York City. Moran was on assignment for Scribner's Magazine in 1871 when he was selected to accompany Ferdinand V. Hayden's geological survey to the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. No more suitable company could have been assembled. For sixteen days, Moran sketched, and William Henry Jackson photographed the most compelling features of what was to become Yellowstone National Park, from the impressive geothermal formations of geysers and hot springs to the vivid colors of the river canyon itself. Hayden presented Moran's watercolors and Jackson's photographs to Congress as part of his successful effort to designate Yellowstone as America's first national park. The strategy worked. Even more than Hayden's oratory, the pictures persuaded the legislators that the park must be preserved, a decision that resulted in the establishment of the first national park. Later, Moran visited California's Yosemite Valley and, in 1873, joined John Wesley Powell's exploration of the Colorado River. Moran published his views of the Far West in various periodicals and produced several large paintings, including The Great Canyon of the Yellowstone and Chasm in the Colorado, which the U. S. Congress purchased. Over the next forty years, he traveled widely. Many of his favorite sketching sites in the West were set aside as national parks and monuments, notably Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona. He was elected to the National Academy of Design membership in 1884 and produced a large body of work in his later years. Moran was in tune with the spirit of his age, and this, combined with his phenomenal artistic talent, brought him significant acclaim. Moran provided an image of the American continent's infinite potential as symbolized by its dramatic, majestic landscape. Howes H338; Graff 1830; Eberstadt 127:310; Bennett, p. 80; K.M. McClinton Chromolithographs of Louis Prang p. 159; Joni Kinsey, Moran and the Art of Publishing in Thomas Moran (Washington: 1997), pp; Clark, Thomas Moran: Watercolours of the American West, pp; Reese, Stamped with a National Character 99; Streeter sale 2112; Wheat, Trans Mississippi 1269; Reese, Best of the West 189. THE BOBINS SET AT CHRISTIE'S NEW YORK 16 JUNE 2023 SOLD FOR $453,600. N° de ref. del artículo ABE-1686932970937
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