by Michael Wallis

With brush and compass: Thomas Moran came to be considered the American West's most influential landscape painter.

"Thomas Moran is confessedly America's greatest landscape painter, as he is also the painter of America's greatest landscapes."

-The Kansas City Star, October 5, 1923

Long before millions of motorists descended on Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon, creating traffic jams and overcrowded campsites; before there were paved roads, refineries, and rules posted on signs; and before disposable diapers and beer cans littered the land, there was Thomas Moran.

The West truly belonged to Moran. During his initial westward foray in 1871, the gaunt landscape painter swallowed up the sky and the earth. He possessed the unspoiled West of cloud-wrapped mountains, untamed rivers, and canyonlands scarred by the ageless battle between rock and ice. Moran memorized every boulder, every waterfall and geyser, every limestone peak, and every fiery sunset he sketched or captured on canvas. The stunning images he created helped to open the eyes of the world to the unknown splendor of the American West and prompted the federal government to establish the nation's largest park.

Moran came to America from England when he was seven and developed as an artist without benefit of much formal training. Although he vowed early on to paint "as an American, on an American basis, and American only," at first glance Moran appeared an unlikely candidate for the role of a Western painter.

The tenderfoot was so scrawny he resorted to riding horseback with a pillow for padding beneath him on the saddle. Instead of gobbling down wild game or beefsteak, Moran preferred to dine on succulent trout. One writer described him as appearing cadaverous. The rawboned artist did not give a tinker's damn what others thought of his physical appearance. He cared only about how they viewed his work. When it came to what he called "the business of a great painter," Moran often was his own most severe critic.

"I have always held that the grandest, most beautiful, or wonderful in nature would, in capable hands, make the grandest and most beautiful or wonderful pictures," Moran explained. "The business of a great painter should be the representation of great scenes in nature. If I fail to prove this, I fail to prove myself worthy of the name of painter."

Praise poured in for Moran's paintings and prints. Critics suggested that he captured the wonder and excitement of the Western landscape with an intimacy no one could duplicate.

Even the New York Times offered an opinion about Moran's art. The sometimes haughty newspaper lauded Moran for his Mountain of the Holy Cross, an oil painting that certainly added to his growing worldwide reputation. "At last we have among us an artist of native birth [sic] eminently capable of interpreting the sentiment of our wilder mountain scenery in a style commensurate with its grandeur and beauty."

In 1871, while working as an illustrator for Scribner's Monthly, Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson accompanied Ferdinand V. Hayden's government-sponsored surveying expedition to the unexplored Western territory of Yellowstone.

As Hayden's topographers recorded the heights of waterfalls and mountains and struggled to understand the energy of geysers, Moran and Jackson brought to life scenes of Yellowstone's bizarre beauty. Moran returned with copious notes and a portfolio overflowing with dozens of field sketches and watercolors, all of which provided a visual catalog of Yellowstone's many natural wonders.

Purple Mountain Majesties: Zion Valley, c.1873

Moran's creations -- especially his heroic Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone -- not only impressed members of Congress but also became a critical ingredient in the passage of legislation designating Yellowstone as the first national park. Moran was such a fierce and unabashed champion of Yellowstone, and his paintings were so identified with the region, that he became known as the father of the park system. Ultimately he adopted the nickname T. "Yellowstone" Moran, and often signed his monogram "TYM."

At his death, Moran's extensive studio collection became the property of his youngest daughter, Ruth Bedford Moran. She managed to keep most of the material intact until her death in 1948. Fortunately, Thomas Gilcrease -- an Oklahoma oilman, philanthropist, and art collector -- purchased the Moran family estate and brought much of the collection to Tulsa, where he created Gilcrease Museum on the grounds of his home in the rolling Osage Hills.

The Gilcrease Museum today houses one of the most comprehensive collections of the American West, including more than 10,000 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, 250,000 Native American artifacts, and 90,000 manuscripts, documents, and maps. The core of the museum's impressive permanent art collection remains the many works by Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Olaf Seltzer, Joseph Sharp and, of course, Thomas "Yellowstone" Moran.

Copyright ©1998 Cowboys & Indians

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