Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park

Old Faithful Geyser, Emerald Spring, the magnificent canyons and falls of the Yellowstone River—these and other sites, familiar to the millions of visitors who travel through Yellowstone National Park each year, have been an inspiration to generations of artists. Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and dozens of other artists have braved difficult conditions to capture the splendors of Yellowstone in many media, from delicate watercolors and pen-and-ink sketches to powerful oils and popular lithographs. They have portrayed the animals that lived there, the humans who passed through, and above all the remarkable features that have made Yellowstone a wonderland to so many artists and observers.

From the moment of its inception in 1872 as the first national park in the world, Yellowstone National Park has been perceived as a vast visual spectacle. By the 1890s it was known as “the Nation’s Art Gallery.” Peter H. Hassrick traces the artistic history of the park from its earliest explorers to the present day in this new edition of Drawn to Yellowstone, a richly illustrated account of the artists who traveled to and were inspired by Yellowstone.

Yellowstone is simultaneously an aesthetic experience and a potent force in America’s search for national identity. Visitors made comparisons between the castles of Europe and the gleaming spires of Yellowstone to prove that America, too, had its history and its grandeur. Like the waters pulsing from its geysers, from Yellowstone flows an artistic energy that at once captivates a nation and contributes to its philosophical and aesthetic history.