A watercolor of large, craggy mountains.

Mount Superior, as viewed from Alta, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah

Thomas Moran (1837-1926)

Date

1879
Medium

Watercolor and graphite on paper
Dimensions

Sheet: 11 7/8 x 17 3/4 in.
Inscriptions

Original backing card, verso:
u.c. in graphite: {On the Yellow Stone River} by an american [sic] artist - I believe. A Severin
r.c. in graphite: 51626 [circled] / 9+B 23 3/4 x 17 3/4 / Rough whal[illegible] Mt. / 6929a / new tint - cosc / mt + wash / Resize + [illegible] / touch in spot / in sky
Original backing board, verso:
u.c. in graphite: On the yellow Stone River / by an American Artist
c. on label: Frame No. 51626 [graphite] Date 18-1-98 [graphite] / From HARRIS & SONS / Established 17_0[lost] / Picture Frame Makers, Gilders / and Mount Cutters / PICTURE DEALERS | PICTURE RESTORERS / House Painters . D[lost]ators / ARTISTS' COLOURMEN [lost] STATIONERS / The Devon and Cornwall Galleries / 70 George Street / PLYMOUTH
Credit Line

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Purchase in loving memory of our dear friend and colleague William Patrick (Pat) Harris
Accession Number

2020.1
Copyright

Public domain

In the summer of 1879, Moran visited the town of Alta in the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City, a region that is part of the ancestral homelands of the Paiute, Ute, and other Great Basin peoples. Inspired by the scenery, Moran created a number of remarkable drawings and watercolors in which he rendered granite topography with fluid washes and suggestive linework. In works such as this one, Moran portrayed the area as uninhabited wilderness, even though Alta was at the time a bustling mining community.

At some point in the 1880s, this watercolor was acquired by the Englishman John Ruskin, perhaps the most influential art critic of the 19th century. Moran and his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran, were two of the only Americans represented in Ruskin’s collection, and Mount Superior provides an important record of the critic’s collecting interests.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).

Thomas Moran’s Mount Superior

August 28–December 12, 2021

Featuring a long-lost watercolor by the acclaimed landscape artist, this exhibition explores these divergent depictions of the American landscape through photography, works on paper, and popular culture ephemera from the period.

Location: Off view

See more by Thomas Moran

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