Photograph by Ed Pollard, Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital slr-2010.

Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho

Artist Thomas Moran (American, 1837 - 1926)

CultureAmerican

Dateca. 1875

MediumWatercolor on paper board

DimensionsOverall: 10 x 14 in. (25.4 x 35.6 cm)

InscribedSigned in monogram lower right: TYM (in ligature) On back of framing paper: "This water color painting is in my opinion a genuine work of Thomas Moran, N.A. American 1837-1928" Signed: "G. Frank Muller" and dated "NY City April 7/41"

Credit LineGift of Hugh Gordon Miller

Object number60.52.47

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an opaque watercolor on paperboard painting depicting Shoshone Falls, Idaho, with red cliffs in the background.

Label TextThomas Moran American, 1837–1926 Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho, ca. 1875 Watercolor on paper board Thomas Moran was one of the first painters to capture the dramatic scenery of the American West for audiences back East. Known today for his grandiose oil paintings, Moran was a longtime member of the American Watercolor Society. A work like this one was likely completed in the studio but rooted in his expeditionary watercolor practice based upon firsthand observation in the field. Gift of Hugh Gordon Miller 60.52.47 ProvenanceThe artist, L. Prang and Co., Boston, Mass.; Hugh Gordon Miller; Gift of Hugh Gordon Miller to the Chrysler Museum, 1960. Exhibition History"The Most Remarkable Scenary: Thomas Moran's Watercolors of the American West," Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Tex., May 23 - July 13, 1980; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, August 5 - October 5, 1980; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., October 23 - January 4, 1981. "Thomas Moran," The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., September 28, 1997 - January 11, 1998. "The American West: Out of Myth, Into Reality," Trust for Museum Exhibitions with the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Miss., February 8 - June 8, 2000. "Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. "Watercolor: An American Medium," Photography Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, February 21 - June 23, 2019. Published ReferencesIdaho State Historical Society. 610N. Boise, Idaho. Number 11 in Hugh Gordon Miller Collection 1960 catalog. Carol C. Clark, "The Most Remarkable Scenery," _The American West: The Magazine of Western History_ XVII, No. 2. (March 1980): 40-46. Carol Clark, _Thomas Moran: Watercolors of the American West_, (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1980), 145, 172, Plate 73, cat. no. 176. ISBN: 0292750595 Michael Duty, "Thomas Moran's Watercolors of the American West," _The Magazine Antiques_ CXIX, No. 1 (January 1981): 212-215. _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_, (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982): 84. ISBN: 0-940744-37-6 _Time and Light_, co-produced by WETA-TV and the Smithsonian Institution, WETA-TV, 1984, videorecording. Katharine M. McClinton, "Thomas Moran's Yellowstone Watercolours," _Apollo_ CXXIV, No. 293 (July 1986): 38-43. Audrey Knoth, "Same falls captured in different ways: 19th-century painting, photograph at Chrysler," _Compass_ (Norfolk, Va., August 22, 1990): 14. Brooks Johnson, "Shoshone Falls Photograph Complements Museum Collection," _The Chrysler Museum, A Monthly Bulletin_ 20, No. 8. (September 1990): 1-2. Peter H. Hassrick, Donna Davies, Bradley A. Finson, and Stephanie Foster Rahill, _The American West: Out of Myth, Into Reality_ exh. cat., Washington, D.C.: Trust for Museum Exhibitions in Association with The Mississippi Museum of Art, 2000, 135. ISBN: 1882507088 Nancy K. Anderson, _Thomas Moran_ exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1997, 102. ISBN: 0300073259, 0894682253 Anne Morand, "The camera and the artist's eye," _Gilcrease Journal_ 10 (Tulsa, Okla.: Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association, Summer 2002), 20-21. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 76-77, no. 42. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6 Joni L. Kinsey, _Thomas Moran's West: Chromolithography, High Art, and Popular Taste_ (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. 2006) p. 143 & Fig. 117. ISBN: 0-7006-1413-3