An academically trained artist, German-born Albert Bierstadt was one of many artists who painted majestic scenes of the new frontiers of the American West in the middle of the 19th century.  Documenting his many trips across the continent in both sketchbooks and photographs, Bierstadt painted his detailed canvases and large panoramic scenes in his studio in New York.  These images evoked the grandeur and drama of the largely unsettled areas of the growing country.  These canvases, like High Sierra, present the beauty of the wilderness to patrons in the more heavily populated East.