Albert Bierstadt

Hetch Hetchy Cañon

(Hetch Hetchy Valley, Tuolumne River, Yosemite)

Albet Bierstadt - Hetch Hetchy Canyon

Albert Bierstadt's spectacular painting of Hetch Hetchy Valley marked the founding of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1876, and the original has been there ever since. Purchased by Mrs. A. L. Williston and Mrs. E. H. Sawyer the year after Bierstadt completed the painting, they wrote of their gift: "It is our hope that this fine painting as one expression of the best in American Art, will prove an inspiration to your pupils, and that [Mount] Holyoke will long continue to offer opportunities for the highest culture."

Albert Bierstadt described his painting in a letter to these two ladies on November 3, 1876:

"The scene is laid in the Hetch Hetchy Cañon, California which lies some twenty miles north of the Yosemite and is rarely visited by the tourist because of its inaccessibility. It is smaller than the more famous Valley but it presents many of the same features in its scenery and is quite as beautiful. The season I have chosen is late Autumn when distant objects are mellowed by a golden haze and when the grass is dry and yellow. A few Elk, now unfortunately becoming more rare every year — are coming up the valley in quest of one of the few mountain streams that the long dry season has not quenched. In early times the deer were very numerous — as many as a thousand head often being seen together."

- Albert Bierstadt

Image and Bierstadt text courtesy of:

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
Lower Lake Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Telephone: (413) 538-3185

To get involved in the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy, contact Restore Hetch Hetchy at: info@hetchhetchy.org, To get involved in the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy, contact Restore Hetch Hetchy at: info@hetchhetchy.org, P.O. Box 3538, Sonora, CA 95370. Telephone: (209) 533-4481.

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