MOUNT SIR DONALD IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1902

VINTAGE POSTCARDS 

Mount Sir Donald  (3, 284 m - 10,774  ft)

Canada

 In Mount Sir Donald,  © Detroit Photographic Co..., 1902

The mountain 

Mount Sir Donald  (3, 284 m - 10,774  ft) is a peak in the Selkirk Mountains range near the Rogers Pass area of British Columbia, Canada. It was originally named Syndicate Peak in honor of the group who arranged the finances for the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but was later renamed after Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, head of the syndicate.

The  good rock quality of Mount Sir Donald and  its classic Matterhorn shape make it popular for alpine rock climbers, and the Northwest Arete route is included in the popular book 50 Classic Climbs of North America. There are no truly easy routes to its summit although some of the routes are not technically difficult. Even before its inclusion as one of the 50 classic climbs of North America the peak was a very popular objective indeed, especially the Northwest Ridge. It is worth noting that the peak seems to create its own weather at times as it towers above the surrounding peaks, and the lichen on the rock is very slippery when wet. The recorded routes on all sides range in rating from class 4 to 5.8+.

The first ascent was made in 1890 by two Swiss alpinist, Emil Huber and Carl Sulzer and porter Harry Cooper. As of the 1910s, an average of three or four ascents per year were being made.

Vintage postcards
Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories. Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Teich & Co. were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well. Yvon were the most famous in France. Many individual or anonymous publishers did exist around the world and especially in Africa and  Asia (Japan, Thailand, Nepal, China, Java) between 1920 and 1955. These photographer were mostly local notables, soldiers, official guides belonging to the colonial armies (british french, belgium...) who sometimes had rather sophisticated equipment and readily produced colored photograms or explorers, navigators, climbers (Vittorio Sella and the Archiduke of Abruzzi future king of Italy remains the most famous of them).
There are many types of collectible vintage postcards.
Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.
Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards–often embroidered over a printed image–were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes; they were especially popular during World War I.
In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.

Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters or natural wonders. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Frances Brundage.

_______________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT SIR DONALD PAINTED BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1811-1902)

Mount Sir Donald  (3, 284 m - 10,774  ft)

Canada

 In Mount Sir Donald, oil on canvas The Haggin Museum, Stockton, California

The mountain 

Mount Sir Donald  (3, 284 m - 10,774  ft) is a peak in the Selkirk Mountains range near the Rogers Pass area of British Columbia, Canada. It was originally named Syndicate Peak in honor of the group who arranged the finances for the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but was later renamed after Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, head of the syndicate.

The  good rock quality  of Mount Sir Donald and  its classic Matterhorn shape make it popular for alpine rock climbers, and the Northwest Arete route is included in the popular book 50 Classic Climbs of North America. There are no truly easy routes to its summit although some of the routes are not technically difficult. Even before its inclusion as one of the 50 classic climbs of North America the peak was a very popular objective indeed, especially the Northwest Ridge. It is worth noting that the peak seems to create its own weather at times as it towers above the surrounding peaks, and the lichen on the rock is very slippery when wet. The recorded routes on all sides range in rating from class 4 to 5.8+.

The first ascent was made in 1890 by two Swiss alpinist, Emil Huber and Carl Sulzer and porter Harry Cooper. As of the 1910s, an average of three or four ascents per year were being made.

The painter 

Albert Bierstadt was a German-born American painter. He was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. At an early age Bierstadt developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth. 

In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

In 1858 he exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the National Academy of Design, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy.  At this time Bierstadt began painting scenes in New England and upstate New York, including in the Hudson River valley. A group of artists known as the Hudson River School portrayed its majestic landscapes and craggy areas, as well as the light affected by the changing waters.

In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, to see those landscapes.  He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

During the American Civil War, Bierstadt paid for a substitute to serve in his place when he was drafted in 1863. He completed one Civil War painting Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War in 1862, based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861.

Bierstadt's painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. Bierstadt's painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observes that Bierstadt's painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience."

In 1860, he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany.[ In 1867 he traveled to London, where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria. He traveled through Europe for two years, cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his work overseas.

As a result of the publicity generated by his Yosemite paintings, Bierstadt's presence was requested by every explorer considering a westward expedition, and he was commissioned by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to visit the Grand Canyon for further subject matter.

Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West. It accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the Rockies to those who had not seen them. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. 

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choices of subject and his use of light was felt to be excessive. 

In 1882 Bierstadt's studio at Irvington, New York, was destroyed by fire, resulting in the loss of many of his paintings. By the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was then largely forgotten. He was buried at the Rural Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Interest in his work was renewed in the 1960s, with the exhibition of his small oil studies. The subsequent reassessment of Bierstadt's work has placed it in a favorable context.

Bierstadt's theatrical art, fervent sociability, international outlook, and unquenchable personal energy reflected the epic expansion in every facet of western civilization during the second half of the nineteenth century. Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Many of these are held by museums across the United States.

Several mountain paintings by Bierstadt are published in this blog.  To find them, go to his name in the column on the right and just click on his name. 

Sources: 

- Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

- Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company