As one of Americas most prominent nineteenth-century painters, Albert Bierstadt (18301902) is justly renowned for his majestic paintings of the western landscape. Yet Bierstadt was also a painter of history, and his figurative works, replete with images of Plains Indians and the American bison, are an important part of his legacy as well. This splendid full-color volume highlights his achievements in chronicling a rapidly changing American West.

Born in Germany, Bierstadt rose to prominence as an American artist in the late 1850s and enjoyed decades of critical success. His paintings propelled him to the forefront of the American art scene, but they also met with reproach from his peers and critics in the press who viewed his painting style as outmoded. Bierstadts star would rise again, however, when modern art historians began to reconsider his complex oeuvre.

This volume takes a major step in reappraising Bierstadts contributions by reexamining the artist through a new lens. It shows how Bierstadt conveyed moral messages through his paintings, striving to preserve the dignity of Native peoples and call attention to the tragic slaughter of the American bison. More broadly, the book reconsiders the artists engagement with contemporary political and social debates surrounding wildlife conservation in America, the creation and perpetuation of national parks, and the prospects for the Wests indigenous peoples. Bierstadts final history paintings, especially his dual masterworks titledThe Last of the Buffaloa special focus of this volumestand out as elegiac odes to an earlier era, giving voice to concerns about the intertwined fates of Native peoples and endangered wildlife in the West.