Eadweard Muybridge
LONE MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COLLECTION OF STEREOGRAPHS, ca. 1867-ca. 1880

The Indians of California
Number 1586
Albert Bierstadt's Studio
[BANC PIC 1971.055:1586--STER]

Bierstadt established an art studio in San Francisco and at an art reception he met and befriended the noted photographer Eadweard Muybridge. These two men traveled to Yosemite National Park in 1872, each to pursue his specialty, Muybridge to photograph Native Americans and Bierstadt to sketch these same people.

The Indians of California
Number 1587
Albert Bierstadt's Studio
[BANC PIC 1971.055:1587--STER]

The stereograph numbered "1587 Albert Bierstadt's Studio," is a wonderful photograph by Muybridge of Albert Bierstadt at work in an area of Yosemite along the Merced River known locally as Steamboat Springs. The other stereograph numbered 1586 captures the artists at work around a campsite.

The field studies he sketched and painted later became larger, finished artwork. Bierstadt believed that the rapidly disappearing Indian customs and manners should be captured by painters and writers, "a combination of both will assuredly render . . . [their history] more complete."

These images, published by Bradley & Rulofson are described on the reverse side as two of a series of "Photographic Illustrations of the Pacific Coast: Alaska, California, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Valley of the Yosemite, Mammoth Trees, Geyser Springs . . ."

They also contain a laudatory description of Gallery of Photographic Art, located on Montgomery Street in San Francisco, "This magnificent establishment employs the most skillful artists, produces the finest portraits, and is the largest and best appointed Gallery on the Pacific Coast, and has the only ELEVATOR connected with a Photograph Gallery in the world."