Thomas Moran [Paperback]

Nancy K. Anderson (Author), Thomas Moran (Author), National Gallery of Art (U. S.) (Author), Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art (Corporate Author), Seattle Art Museum (Corporate Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0894682253 | ISBN-13: 978-0894682254 | Publication Date: June 1997 | Edition: First Edition

A survey of Thomas Moran's work throughout his career, this text presents over 100 of his paintings, a biographical essay with chronology and several essays which explore his work. The book is the catalogue for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Thomas Moran hiked through the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone in 1871, when most folks back East thought that stories of hundred-foot-high geysers, thousand-foot-deep canyons, and such were probably hogwash. After he submitted his glorious paintings of cliffs, rapids, and sun-struck vistas, Americans were finally persuaded that the West was as real as it was wild. It is largely because of Moran's glowing, oil-painted testimony that a formerly skeptical U.S. Congress soon preserved those spectacular lands. This book is the catalog of the 1998 retrospective of Moran's work, which opened on the 125th anniversary of the dedication of Yellowstone National Park. Anderson's essays cover every phase of Moran's life and career, from his work as an illustrator and printmaker to his success as one of the gentleman painters of New York City. It contains scores of archival photographs of the rather theatrical Moran as he aged, with his ever-lengthening, ever-whitening chin whiskers, and such treasures as a long letter he wrote from Yellowstone to his beautiful wife, Mary, in which he blithely describes rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and wolves observed at close range. The letter is signed "Your loving Hub." Along with Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Church, John Frederick Kensett, and other 19th-century landscape painters, viewers often associate Moran with what he called "a wonderful age," the optimistic years between the Civil War and the Great War. This book contains plates of every quintessentially American scene he painted--the pulsing sunset over the pristine wilderness, the windswept mountain pass, the misty, rushing stream. A scholarly book, it nonetheless captures much of the wonder Moran and his peers felt for the vast Western landscape and the glowing future it represented. --Peggy Moorman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Moran's watercolors of the Yellowstone country so impressed Congress that it established the second U.S. national park in less than two months in 1872. Moran's subsequent monumental landscape, The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, became one of the most famous paintings of the nineteenth century, and Moran enjoyed a prolific and successful career thereafter. Yet Anderson implies in this exceptional companion to the first retrospective exhibition of Moran's work that not enough about him is generally available. So she and her colleagues present a whopping amount of material--not just sterling reproductions on nonglossy stock that resists finger-smudging but a four-chapter resumeof Moran's life and career, notes to the colorplates that consist of nineteenth-century reactions to his work and the literary passages that inspired him, essays on his printmaking and publishing, a 96-page biochronology, and appendixes, including, complete, the portfolio of Yellowstone watercolors that wowed the public in 1876. Anderson hopes this catalog only begins a future, extensive Moran bibliography, but really, it is a library in itself. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Natl Gallery of Art; First Edition edition (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894682253
• ISBN-13: 978-0894682254
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,569,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars stunning paintings, November 1, 2007

By 

AH Art lover UK - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Thomas Moran (Hardcover)

The paintings are revelatory, the reproductions are sharp and beautifully reproduced, and the colors simply shine. Unfortunately, they are also very small, often not much larger than a big postcard, and even where a whole page has been devoted to a painting, artful layout with large white borders has reduced the actual reproduction to 70% of the size it could have been. With such monumental landscapes, I think that this is a great drawback that leaves me squinting in frustration. These are the sort of paintings which should be reproduced in large format, with plates showing details of sections of the painting. Such a pity when the quality of the book is superb in every other sense, and a missed opportunity. Needless to say, the layout and font is also perfect.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Book, July 19, 2000

By 

Joe Hank (Bartlesville, OK USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Moran (Paperback)

My wife and I were looking for a Thomas Moran book with LOTS of reproductions of his pictures. This book appeared to be what we were looking for. I had Amazon find a copy for me and I gave it to my wife as a birthday present. It was perfect. Lots of reproductions. Lots of good information. Well-organized.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moran is a favorite, April 25, 2000

By 

A. Manocchia (Cambridge, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thomas Moran (Hardcover)

This book is the next best thing to seeing a Moran in a Museum. I'm a landscape artist and love his work. The book took me out West where Moran painted and made me feel the experience. A fantastic experience!