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Buffalo Herds
Circa 1806
Watercolor and gouache
40"x 60"
The painting is an exceedingly large painting for the demanding
medium of watercolor. Her preliminary work for the painting was
done on location of the Teton buffalo herd on Antelope Flats
near Yellowstone National Park. The design of the painting is
influenced by Alfred Bierstadt's oil paintings of the west and
also George Catlin's paintings.
Responding to Meriwether Lewis's account of the magnificence
of the great prairies, the plethora of abundance of game, fruit
trees and berries of all kind, and his phrase which he wrote
again and again "this is paradise," the artist decided
to attempt to show the boundless herds and the endless plains.
The painting is filled with portents of things to come in the
skulls and worrying wolves trying to separate a calf from the
mother and bull. A paradise we can only try to project on the
screen of our imagination. A time past when the prairies were
spoken of as a vast inland sea of grass that flowed beyond human
eyes in any direction and the buffalo were numberless. In 1806
when the Expedition returned to St. Louis it is estimated there
were 30 to 60 million buffalo on the western plains. By 1883
less than 500 wild buffalo remained. With the herds gone it was
the end of the Plains Indian Buffalo Culture and a way of life
forever changed.
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Purchase
Signed Giclee Print of This Painting
on
Fine Art Archival Paper
22" x 36" unframed
Limited edition of 500
$495.00 plus $25.00 shipping and handling
PAYPAL
18.5" x 30" unframed
Limited edition of 500
$295.00 plus $25.00 shipping and handling
PAYPAL
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