Title: Painting in the North Author: Kesler Woodward Pub Date: 1994 ISBN: Paper: 0-295-97320-X Price: Paper: $24.95 Subject Listing: 20th-Century Art Bibliographic Information: • 160 pp. • 100 illus.80 in color • map bibliog. Buy this book from Amazon: click here

Since 1741 when European explorers first landed in Alaska, Western artists have attempted to capture the region's magnificent landscape and unique inhabitants. This lavishly illustrated, carefully researched volume explores more than two centuries of Alaskan drawings, paintings, and prints produced by the visiting and resident artists of Alaska. The art of Alaska has evolved along with the territory: Charming, untutored, sketches of Arctic scenes led to polished landscapes influenced by the latest European schools of painting. The first culturally biased images of Natives gave way to more sensitive, even romanticized, renderings of the inhabitants and their way of life. Intrepid documentary artists who traveled north with scientific and commercial expeditions were followed by part-time artists attracted by gold and adventure. A new era began in the late nineteenth century when artists and tourists cruised the Inside Passage, including the renowned painters Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, William Keith, and Rockwell Kent. Perhaps the most lasting images of Alaska were created by the four enormously popular resident painters Sydney Laurence, Eustace Aiegler, Theodore Lambert, and Jules Dahlager. Prominent Native artists added an indigenous perspective to the growing number of northern scenes.

Close Window