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Hetch
Hetchy Valley, located slightly north of Yosemite, is a smaller version
of Yosemite, yet it was equally spectacular with waterfalls and soaring
granite walls. The controversy to
build a dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley was the first great national
conservation battle. The battle was lost, and Hetch Hetchy is now
under
a reservoir created by the O'Shaughnessy Dam. These paintings by
Bierstadt show what the valley looked like before the dam
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Hetch Hetchy Canyon (date/source unknown: likely the work of a Bierstadt reproductive artist)
| Hetch Hetchy Canyon (Oil, 1875)
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Hetch Hetchy Cañon, California (Oil, 1890)
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Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902)
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It
is interesting to note that the painting of Hetch Hetchy Valley (shown
in the upper, right - above) marked the founding of the Mount Holyoke
College Art Museum. It was purchased by Mrs. A. L. Williston and Mrs.
E. H. Sawyer in 1876: "It is our hope that this fine
painting as one expression of the best in American Art, will prove an
inspiration to your pupils, and that Holyoke will long continue to
offer opportunities for the highest culture."
Bierstadt described his painting to the purchasers thusly:
"The scene is laid in the Hetch Hetchy Cañon, California which lies
some twenty miles north of the Yosemite and is rarely visited by the
tourist because of its inaccessibility. It is smaller than the more
famous Valley but it presents many of the same features in its scenery
and is quite as beautiful. The season I have chosen is late Autumn when
distant objects are mellowed by a golden haze and when the grass is dry
and yellow. A few Elk, now unfortunately becoming more rare every year
— are coming up the valley in quest of one of the few mountain streams
that the long dry season has not quenched. In early times the deer were
very numerous — as many as a thousand head often being seen
together." (Source: Mount Holyoke College Art Museum)
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Note: under the copyright law, Albert Bierstadt's work is in public
domain. The scans, above, are of reproductions and not of originals
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