The Great Salt Lake, Utah Territory, 1876

chromolithograph

9.375 x 14 inches

signature and watercolor original date - T Moran / 1874

Publisher - copyright, 1875, by L. Prang & Co. & Prang's American Chromo

Price Upon Request

This extraordinary print clearly features an idealized view of the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Range. Moran’s work reflects the fondness for romantic views that support the idea of the sublime. In our troubled times, it transports us to a feeling of grandeur and peace.

In 1841 Thomas Moran served as official artist for the United States Government Expedition to Yellowstone Valley along with geologist Prof. F.V. Hayden. Upon his return, Louis Prang commissioned Moran to create 14 watercolors of his travel which were printed alongside text by Hayden. "These prints have never been surpassed as examples of the best American chromolithgraphy . . . (they are) considered unexcelled among illustration of the Far West." (The Chromolithographs of Louis Prang, Katharine M. McClinton, 1973, p.159)

The Grand Canyon of Arizona (from Hermit Rim Road), 1912

Chromolithograph

24 x 32 inches

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Thomas Moran’s chromolithographs capture the grandeur and wonder of his watercolor paintings. Moran was involved in the production of the works, which involved a painstaking process which, due to its complexity and cost, went out of use in the 1920s. The Grand Canyon of Arizona (from Hermit Rim Road) captures the luminosity and sense of manifest destiny of the original painting.

Thomas Moran

1837 - 1926

Long celebrated as the premier painter of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, Thomas Moran produced a remarkably varied body of work during a career that spanned more than sixty years. Extraordinarily adept at recognizing the “visual potential of newly discovered lands in the Far West,” Moran offered Americans and Europeans their first look at several spectacular sites later preserved as national parks.

Selected Collections:

Art Institute of Chicago

De Young Museum

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Cleveland Art Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art