Artist-Explorers in Nebraska, 1820-1874

The term “artist-explorer” is used to describe the European-American artists who traveled west across North America on private and government-sponsored expeditions to survey new territories throughout the nineteenth century. They traveled on horseback, in wagons, by steamboat—and eventually—by train.

During this period, the lands of present-day Nebraska became an important passageway. Notable expeditions across these lands, which typically followed the Missouri or Platte rivers, included those led by Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806, Stephen H. Long in 1819-1820, John C. Frémont in 1842, and Frederick W. Lander in 1859. This activity, and subsequent European-American settlement, displaced the original inhabitants—the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe-Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kaw peoples—and destroyed the bison herds on which they relied.

Artists played a crucial role in these expeditions as recorders of the visual record. In the absence of cameras (the daguerreotype had been invented in 1839 but remained too bulky and fragile to travel), academically trained artists were commissioned as artist-observers, sketching and painting the plants, animals, landscape, and Indigenous peoples they encountered. The images they produced not only showed the riches of the new territories but also served as justification for Manifest Destiny to the American public.

A few of the paintings on view in this exhibition, such as those by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) and Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880), are believed to have been created during their travels. In contrast, most were painted after the artists returned to their studios in the East, sometimes years or even decades later. Producing for a market of eastern private collectors, the artists romanticized and dramatized the scenes for an audience eager to experience the adventure of the American West. This exhibition encourages visitors to view these paintings in this context and consider their impact on the life and culture of Nebraska today.