Above Tower Falls, Yellowstone1872
Thomas Moran painted this in 1872, aged 35. It is now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. More about this work
About this work
Thomas Moran painted this in 1872, aged 35. It is now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
How it was made
- Opaque watercolour
- Watercolour made opaque with white or chalk and laid in flat, even layers. Persian and Indian painters ground their colours from minerals, applied them with the finest brushes and burnished the finished page.
- Watercolour
- Pigment in gum arabic, thinned with water and laid in transparent washes. Nothing white is painted: the light is the paper showing through.
Thomas Moran
American, born England, 1837–1926
Moran came to Philadelphia from England as a child, trained as a wood engraver and largely taught himself to paint, deeply influenced by Turner’s work, which he studied in London. In 1871 he joined Ferdinand Hayden’s survey of Yellowstone, and his sketches and paintings from it helped persuade Congress to create the first national park in 1872. He returned to the American West many times, painting the Grand Canyon, the Tetons and Yosemite on a grand scale.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Hudson River School
American landscape painters of the mid-1800s who made wilderness their grand subject.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1958.5.3
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Graphic Arts
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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More by Thomas Moran
All their works
Close in colour
