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Thomas Moran
The Field Sketches, 1856–1923
by Anne Morand
Introduction by Joan Carpenter Troccoli
Published by: University of Oklahoma Press
Imprint: University of Oklahoma Press
325 Pages | 10 x 10 | 82 color plates, 849 b&w illus
$29.95
Moran is best known for his work in the American West during the post-Civil War expansion, particularly in what would become Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Yosemite national parks. Yet this virtuoso painter and draftsman also traveled in search of inspiration in Pennsylvania, New York’s Long Island, Florida, Wisconsin, Mexico, England, Scotland, Wales, France, and Italy, returning repeatedly to favorite subjects. An almost compulsive desire to sketch refined his innate skill as one of America’s finest landscape artists.
Most of Moran’s known field sketches are reproduced here. As described in the introduction, “their range encompasses summary contour drawings of the spectacular topography of the American West, luminous watercolors that simultaneously fix local color and evoke the artist’s rapturous response to the natural world, and fully realized works that nevertheless preserve the intensity of Moran’s firsthand experience of his plein air subjects.”
No serious formal study of Thomas Moran can be made without reference to this volume.
Anne Morand (1951-2013) was the curator of Native American Art at the National Cowboy Hall and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Joan Carpenter Troccoli retired as Senior Scholar of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art of the Denver Art Museum in June 2012. She is the Founding Director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art, Denver Art Museum, a position in which she served from 2001-05. From 1996-2001, she was Deputy Director of the Denver Art Museum. Before coming to Denver in 1995, she was a Curator of Art and subsequently Director of Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She holds a B. A. from Middlebury College and master's and doctoral degrees from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.