Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. He joined several journeys of the

Westward Expansion The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independent ...

to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century. Bierstadt was born in

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * ...

, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New ...

. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called '' luminism''. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

Early life and education

Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Rhine Province,

on January 7, 1830. He was the son of Christina M. (Tillmans) and Henry Bierstadt, a cooper. His older brothers were prominent stereo view photographers Edward Bierstadt and

Charles Bierstadt Charles Bierstadt (1819–1903) was an American photographer who specialized in stereoscopic views. Biography Bierstadt was born at Solingen, Prussia, November 28, 1819, a son of Henry Bierstadt. He was the older brother of the landscape painte ...

. Albert was just a year old when his family immigrated to

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford ( Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American ...

in 1831. He made clever

crayon A crayon (or wax pastel) is a stick of pigmented wax used for writing or drawing. Wax crayons differ from pastels, in which the pigment is mixed with a dry binder such as gum arabic, and from oil pastels, where the binder is a mixture of wax a ...

sketches in his youth and developed a taste for art. In 1851, Bierstadt began to paint in oils. He returned to Germany in 1853 and studied painting for several years in Düsseldorf with members of its informal school of painting. After returning to New Bedford in 1857, he taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself full-time to painting.

Career

Albert Bierstadt - Rocky Mountain Landscape - Google Art Project

In 1858, Bierstadt exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote th ...

, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy. Bierstadt began painting scenes in New England and upstate

, including in the Hudson River Valley. He was part of a group of artists known as the Hudson River School. In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a

land surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...

for the U.S. government, to see those western American landscapes for his work. He returned to a studio he had taken at the

Tenth Street Studio Building The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists. It became the center of the New York art world for the remainder of the 19th century. Situated at ...

in New York with sketches for numerous paintings he then finished. In 1860, he was elected a member of the

; he received medals in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous c ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

, Belgium, and Germany. In 1863, Bierstadt traveled West again, this time in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he later married. The pair spent seven weeks in the Yosemite Valley. Throughout the 1860s, Bierstadt used studies from this trip as the source for large-scale paintings for exhibition and he continued to visit the American West throughout his career. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West and accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

to those who had not seen them. During the American Civil War (1861 to 1865), Bierstadt was drafted in 1863 and paid for a substitute to serve in his place. By 1862, he had completed one Civil War painting ''Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War'' based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861. That painting was based on a

stereoscopic Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...

photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. The painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

in December 1861. Curator

Eleanor Jones Harvey Eleanor Jones Harvey is a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Career Eleanor Harvey was born in Washington, D.C., and earned a B.A. with distinction from the University of Virginia, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale ...

observed that the painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience." The Last of the Buffalo

Financial recognition confirmed his status: '' The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak'', completed in 1863, was purchased for $25,000 in 1865, the equivalent of almost $400,000 in 2020. In 1867, Bierstadt returned to Europe, arriving in London where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria."Bierstadt, Albert"
National Gallery of Art. Retrieved February 2, 2018. He then travelled through Europe for the next two years, painting new works while also cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his art on the continent. For example, he painted '' Among the Sierra Nevada, California'' in his Rome studio, displaying it in Berlin and London before having it shipped to the U.S. His exhibition pieces both impressed European audiences and furthered the idea of the American West as a land of promise during a period when European emigration to the U.S. was increasing. Bierstadt's choice of grandiose subjects was matched by his entrepreneurial flair. His exhibitions of individual works were accompanied by promotion, ticket sales, and, in the words of one critic, a "vast machinery of advertisement and puffery." Bierstadt's popularity in the U.S. remained strong during his European tour. The publicity generated by his Yosemite Valley paintings in 1868 led a number of explorers to request his presence as part of their westward expeditions. The

Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

also commissioned him to visit and paint the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mi ...

and surrounding region. Rosalie Osborne Bierstadt, standing, unknown date, William Kurtz

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choice of subjects and for his use of light, which they found excessive. Some critics objected to Bierstadt's paintings of Native Americans based on their belief that including Indigenous Americans "marred" the "impression of solitary grandeur." His wife, Rosalie, was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1876, and Bierstadt spent increasing amounts of time with her in the warmer climate of

Nassau Nassau may refer to: Places Bahamas *Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence Canada *Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792 *Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...

in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archi ...

until her death in 1893. He also maintained travel between the western United States, Canada, and his studio in New York. Though his painting career continued later into his life, Bierstadt's work fell increasingly out of critical favor and was increasingly attacked for its theatrical tone. In 1882, a fire destroyed Bierstadt's studio at

Irvington, New York Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson,Staff (ndg"The Irvington Gazette (Irvington-On-Hudson, N.Y.) 1907-1969"Library of Congress is a suburban village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is l ...

and, with it, many of his paintings. Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Yet by the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was buried at the Rural Cemetery in

and remained largely forgotten for nearly 60 years.

Posthumous reception

Interest in Bierstadt's work was renewed in the 1960s with the exhibition of his small oil studies. Modern opinions of Bierstadt have been divided. Some critics have regarded his work as gaudy, oversized, extravagant champions of Manifest Destiny. Others have noted that his landscapes helped create support for the

conservation movement The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...

and the establishment of Yellowstone National Park. His work has been placed in a favorable context, as stated in 1987: On the other hand, his work has been also been criticized as largely an imaginary depiction of nature, and even "souless" in its execution.

Existing work

* 1853 – ''Majesty of the Mountains'' * 1855 – ''The Old Mill'' * 1855 – ''The Portico of Octavia'' * 1855 – ''Westphalia'' * 1858 – ''Lake Lucerne'', c. 1853, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art,

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

* 1859 – ''The Wolf River, Kansas'', c. 1859, oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan * 1861 – ''Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, NH'', Smith College Museum of Art, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts * 1863 – '' The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak'', oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York * 1864 – ''Cho-looke, the Yosemite Fall'', oil on canvas,

Timken Museum of Art The Timken Museum of Art is a fine art museum, established in 1965 and located at 1500 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, close to the San Diego Museum of Art. History The groundwork for the museum was laid in 1951 when Walter ...

, San Diego, California * 1864 – '' Valley of the Yosemite'', oil on paper,

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, Massachusetts *1865 - ''Looking Down Yosemite Valley'',

Birmingham Museum of Art The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. It has one of the most extensive collections of artwork in the Southeastern United States, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts repres ...

, Alabama * 1866 – ''Yosemite Valley'', Oil on canvas on panel-back stretcher,

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egypt ...

, Cleveland, Ohio * 1866 – ''On the Hudson River Near Irvington'', 1866–70, oil on paper,

Berkshire Museum __NOTOC__ The Berkshire Museum is a museum of art, natural history, and ancient civilization that is located in Pittsfield in Berkshire County, Massachusetts ( United States). History The Berkshire Museum, founded by local paper magnate Zenas ...

, Pittsfield, Massachusetts * 1866 – '' A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie'', oil on canvas,

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown ...

, New York City, New York * 1868 – ''Connecticut River Valley, Claremont, New Hampshire'', 1868, oil on canvas,

, Pittsfield, Massachusetts * 1868 – ''In the Sierras'', Fogg Museum, Harvard University,

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

* 1868 – '' Among the Sierra Nevada, California'', Smithsonian American Art Museum,

* 1869 – ''Glen Ellis Falls'', oil on canvas, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, New Jersey * 1870 - ''Sierra Nevada Morning'', oil on canvas,

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...

, Tulsa, Oklahoma * 1870 – '' Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast'', oil on canvas, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington * 1871 – ''Domes of Yosemite'', c. 1871, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, St. Johnsbury, Vermont * 1874 – ''Giant Redwood Trees of California'', c. 1874, oil on canvas,

, Pittsfield, Massachusetts * 1875 – '' Mount Adams, Washington'', 1875, oil on canvas, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey * 1876 – ''Mount Corcoran'', c. 1876–77, oil on canvas,

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Desig ...

* 1888 – '' The Last of the Buffalo'', oil on canvas,

* 1889 – '' Alaskan Coast Range'', c. 1889, Smithsonian American Art Museum,

* 1891 – ''The Last of the Buffalo'', c. 1891, vintage photogravure, Valley Fine Art Gallery,

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Mou ...

* 1895 – ''The Morteratsch Glacier Upper Engadine Valley – Pontresina''

Selected paintings

File:Albert Bierstadt - Roman Fish Market. Arch of Octavius - Google Art Project.jpg, Roman Fish Market. Arch of Octavius. De Young Museum,

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

File:Albert Bierstadt - Guerrilla Warfare.jpg, ''Guerilla Warfare, Civil War'' by Albert Bierstadt, 1862,

Century Association The Century Association is a private social, arts, and dining club in New York City, founded in 1847. Its clubhouse is located at 7 West 43rd Street near Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It is primarily a club for men and women with distinction ...

New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

File:Bierstadt Albert Staubbach Falls Near Lauterbrunnen Switzerland.jpg, ''Staubbach Falls, Near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland'', 1865 File:Bierstadt Albert - Yosemite Valley.jpg, ''Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Park'', c. 1868,

Oakland Museum The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cali ...

, Oakland, California File:HRSOA AlbertBierstadt-Storm in the Mountains.jpg, ''Storm in the Mountains'', c. 1870, Museum of Fine Art,

Boston, MA Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...

File:1875, Bierstadt, Albert, Mount Adams, Washington.jpg, '' Mount Adams, Washington'', 1875, Princeton University Art Museum File:Albert Bierstadt - Mount Corcoran.jpg, ''

Mount Corcoran Mount Corcoran is a mountain summit located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. It is situated on the boundary between Tulare County and Inyo County, as well as the boundary between Sequoia National Park and John Mui ...

'', c. 1876–77,

File:Gosnold at Cuttyhunk.jpg, ''Gosnold at Cuttyhunk'' (c. 1858), New Bedford Whaling Museum,

New Bedford, MA New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American p ...

File:Albert Bierstadt - The Marina Piccola, Capri.jpg, ''The Marina Piccola, Capri'' (1859),

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park-Front Park System, Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily clos ...

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Southe ...

File:Albert Bierstadt - Indians Spear Fishing - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Indians Spear Fishing'', 1862 File:Albert Bierstadt - The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak.jpg, '' The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak'' (1863), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York File:Looking Down Yosemite-Valley.jpg, '' Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California'' (1865),

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fro ...

File:Albert Bierstadt 001.jpg, ''Lake Tahoe'' (1868),

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

File:Sierra Nevada Albert Bierstadt circa 1871.jpeg, ''Sierra Nevada'' (c. 1871–1873),

Reynolda House Museum of American Art The Reynolda House Museum of American Art displays a premiere collection of American art ranging from the colonial period to the present. Built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds T ...

, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. File:Albert Bierstadt - A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie - Google Art Project.jpg, '' A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie'' (1866),

, New York File:Albert Bierstadt - California Spring - Google Art Project.jpg, ''California Spring'', 1875, De Young Museum,

File:Albert Bierstadt - Light in the Forest.jpg, ''Light in the Forest'', unknown date File:Albert Bierstadt - Valley of the Yosemite - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Valley of the Yosemite'', 1864,

File:Sunrise on the Matterhorn MET DT218107.jpg, '' Sunrise on the Matterhorn'', Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Albert Bierstadt, Estes Park and Longs Peak, circa 1876.jpg, ''Estes Park, Long's Peak,'' 1877, Denver Art Museum (on loan from the Denver Public Library) File:Emerald Sea - Albert Bierstadt.jpg, ''Emerald Sea'' (or ''The Shore of the Turquoise Sea''), 1878, Manoogian Collection, Detroit, U.S. File:Albert_Bierstadt_-_Giant_Redwood_Trees_of_California_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, '' Giant Redwood Trees of California'', 1874,

, Massachusetts, United States.

Legacy and honors

Bierstadt Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, USA

* Because of Bierstadt's interest in mountain landscapes,

Mount Bierstadt Mount Bierstadt is a mountain summit in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The fourteener is located in the Mount Evans Wilderness of Pike National Forest, south by east ( bearing 171°) of the Town of Georg ...

and

Bierstadt Lake Bierstadt Lake is located in Larimer County, Colorado and within the Rocky Mountain National Park. Near McHenrys Peak and Longs Peak, there are "spectacular views" of the Continental Divide at the lake. The Bierstadt Lake Trailhead is located ab ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

are named in his honor. Bierstadt was probably the first European to visit the summit of Mount Evans in 1863, 1.5 miles from Mount Bierstadt. Bierstadt named it Mount Rosa, a reference to both

Monte Rosa : , other_name = Monte Rosa massif , translation = Mount Rose , photo = Dufourspitze (Monte Rosa) and Monte Rosa Glacier as seen from Gornergrat, Wallis, Switzerland, 2012 August.jpg , photo_caption = Central Mon ...

above Zermatt and, Rosalie Ludlow, his future wife, but the name was changed from Rosalie to Evans in 1895 in honor of Colorado governor John Evans. * In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20 commemorative stamps entitled "Four Centuries of American Art", one of which featured Albert Bierstadt's ''The Last of the Buffalo''. In 2008, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp in its "American Treasures" series featuring Bierstadt's 1864 painting ''Valley of the Yosemite.'' *

William Bliss Baker William Bliss Baker (November 27, 1859 – November 20, 1886) was an American artist who began painting just as the Hudson River School was winding down. Baker began his studies in 1876 at the National Academy of Design, where he studied with ...

, another landscape artist, studied under Bierstadt.

References

WikiArt WikiArt (formerly known as WikiPaintings) is an online, user-editable visual art encyclopedia, active since 2004. Current Development In January 2020, the site shows the following numbers: * 3293 artists (attributed to 171 art movements, 267 a ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bierstadt, Albert 1830 births 1902 deaths 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters American landscape painters Artists of the American West Prussian emigrants to the United States Hudson River School painters Luminism (American art style) People from Solingen People from the Rhine Province People from Irvington, New York Düsseldorf school of painting Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters