Laramie Plains, Nebraska

Artist Albert Bierstadt (American, 1830 - 1902)

Datec. 1859

Mediumoil on paperboard

Dimensions5 3/4 x 8 7/8 inches (14.6 x 22.5 cm)
Frame: 14 3/4 × 34 × 3/4 inches (37.5 × 86.4 × 1.9 cm)

Credit LineBequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965

Object number31.14.27

ClassificationsPaintings

DescriptionHorizontal oil painting depicting a grassy plain with a few figures of humans and animals in the foreground. In the distance, a line of trees crosses in front of low bluffs and mountains in the distance below a sky with a few wispy clouds.

Label TextWhen Bierstadt first traveled west in 1859 he was able to sketch buffalo grazing on the plains in studies such as these. In the next thirty years the American bison nearly became extinct. Bierstadt lamented the buffalo's plight in a major visual image, The Last of the Buffalo, which he produced as two large oil paintings and as a photogravure. This image influenced gun engraver Leonard Francolini, who used a motif from The Last of the Buffalo on a firearm in the exhibition Pistols: Dazzling Firearms (on view at the Stark Museum of Art June 20-October 24, 2009).

ProvenancePurchased June 3, 1958 through (C. Bland Jamison, Santa Fe, New Mexico) by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; bequeathed September 2, 1965 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation; accessioned to the Stark Museum of Art

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