Barbara Lloyd McMichael

“Albert Bierstadt; Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast” — Patricia Junker
UW Press — 70 pages — $19.95

“Evergreen Muse: The Art of Elizabeth Colborne”
Whatcom Museum – 96 pages — $25

The Pacific Northwest’s beauty has been a draw for generations of artists.

 

This summer two museum exhibitions showcase some of those works, so if tempestuous weather foils your outdoor plans, I’d encourage you to find solace in these shows: “Evergreen Muse: The Art of Elizabeth Colborne” at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art and “Beauty and Bounty: American Art in an Age of Exploration” at the Seattle Art Museum.

 

I mention all this because the catalogues published in conjunction with these exhibits are wonderful reads and do much to illuminate the fascinating stories of two artists who communicated the spirit of the Pacific Northwest to the greater world.

 

Albert Bierstadt’s painting “Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast” is the pivotal work in the SAM exhibit. The accompanying catalogue, titled “Albert Bierstadt – Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast – A Superb Vision of Dreamland,” was written by SAM’s American art curator, Patricia Junker.

 

Born in Prussia in 1830, Bierstadt immigrated with his family to the United States when he was a toddler.

In 1853 he became a naturalized American citizen and promptly went back to Europe to study art.

When he returned to the U.S. four years later, Bierstadt made the first of many western expeditions, establishing a reputation as an artist-explorer. He first traveled to the Pacific Northwest in 1863 and seven years later painted “Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast.”

 

Trouble was, he’d never gotten to Puget Sound. Junker explains that Bierstadt was assiduous in documenting details in sketches of his travels up the Columbia River and along Washington’s ocean coast. But he had a different purpose when he returned to the studio to create his oversized landscapes.

Their epic style was intended to convey the enormity of the nation’s transformation. Drama trumped accuracy.

Junker presents her nuanced scholarship in a lively fashion. She is no apologist for Bierstadt but does provide helpful context that adds to the understanding of the work of 19th-century artists as they interpreted the western landscape for an eager public.   

 

If Bierstadt was a shameless self-promoter, Elizabeth Colborne was just the opposite.

 

Born in the Midwest in 1885 and orphaned only eight years later, Colborne was sent to live with an aunt in Bellingham. After graduating from Bellingham High School, she went to New York to study art. She had some commercial success as a designer, author and illustrator of children’s books and during the Depression she participated in a precursor to the Works Progress Administration’s employment project for artists.

 

Colborne eventually returned to the Northwest, where she found inspiration in the woods and waterscapes and continued making art. She is perhaps unsurpassed in her bold and richly colored woodcuts that celebrate the splendor of the Pacific Northwest, but for job security she did drafting for Boeing.

 

Time has lost track of many of Colborne’s artworks, but the Whatcom Museum’s current exhibit, curated by David F. Martin, and the richly illustrated catalogue that accompanies it should revive attention for this wonderful regional artist.  

Editor’s note: The art exhibits of the Whatcom Museum of History and Art are in the Lightcatcher Building, 250 Flora St., Bellingham. Hours are noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. The Seattle Art Museum Downtown is at 1300 First Ave., Seattle. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday-Friday; closed Monday-Tuesday. There are admission fees for both.

 

The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Pacific Northwest. Contact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com.