Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830-1960

Crossing Continents: America and Beyond

Crossing Continents shifts the focus of the exhibition to the United States. Artists portrayed the railroad as sometimes in harmony with the landscape and sometimes at loggerheads with the virgin beauty of nature. Albert Bierstadt’s large painting of the Donner Pass in the Rockies addresses the heroic feats of Western railroad expansion and the conquest of geographical obstacles. The painting by Henry Farny depicts the resistance and defeat of the Plains Indians in the face of Manifest Destiny. The completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 was well-recorded by photographers, whose records of scenes along the route encouraged tourism as well as settlement.

Thomas Proudley Otter, 1832-1890
On the Road, 1860
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George Inness, 1825-1894
The Lackawanna Valley, ca. 1856
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Henry Farny, 1847-1916
Morning of a New Day, 1907
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Albert Bierstadt, 1830-1902
Donner Lake from the Summit, 1873
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Andrew Joseph Russell, 1830-1902
East and West Shaking Hands at Laying of Last Rail, 1869
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William Henry Jackson, 1843-1942
Dale Creek Bridge, UP Railway, 1887-1891
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