A Portrait of the Artist As an Old Man
With his long, white beard and alert gaze, Thomas Moran is portrayed as an aged master in this photograph from the Juley Collection.While Moran was a member of Ferdinand Hayden's United States Geological Survey during the 1870s, he stayed at Fort Kanab, near the early Mormon settlement in Utah. This later painting, Mist in Kanab Canyon, Utah, [shown below] is probably based on his own watercolor sketches and photographs by William Henry Jackson, who was also a member of Hayden's survey.
Rather than illustrating a history of conflict between early Mormon settlers and Native Americans, Moran instead chose to depict the site in the language of the sublime. The canyon's geologic formations rise into swirling mists above the crashing cataracts. A bird soars over Moran's Kanab, evoking thoughts of the dove of peace that oversaw the receding of the Flood's waters. By the 1890s when he painted this view, the nearby fort had developed into a thriving town.
Seventy artworks by Moran and others are featured in Lure of the West, one of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Treasures to Go exhibitions, on view until November 26, 2000 at the Akron Art Museum in Ohio.
Source: Merry Foresta. Lure of the West: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).
Pictured top: Photograph of Thomas Moran, 1837 England–1926 USA, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection.
Pictured bottom: Thomas Moran, 1837 England–1926 USA, Mist in Kanab Canyon, Utah, 1892, oil, 44 3/8 x 38 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Mrs. Bessie B. Croffut.
With his long, white beard and alert gaze, Thomas Moran is portrayed as an aged master in this photograph from the Juley Collection.While Moran was a member of Ferdinand Hayden's United States Geological Survey during the 1870s, he stayed at Fort Kanab, near the early Mormon settlement in Utah. This later painting, Mist in Kanab Canyon, Utah, [shown below] is probably based on his own watercolor sketches and photographs by William Henry Jackson, who was also a member of Hayden's survey.