Art of the Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush captured the get-rich dreams of people around the world more completely than almost any event in American history. This catalog, published in celebration of the sesquicentennial of the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, shows the vitality of the arts in the Golden State during the latter nineteenth century and documents the dramatic impact of the Gold Rush on the American imagination.

Among the throngs of gold-seekers in California were artists, many self-taught, others formally trained, and their arrival produced an outpouring of artistic works that provide insights into Gold Rush events, personages, and attitudes. The best-known painting of the Gold Rush era, C.C. Nahl'sSunday Morning in the Mines (1872), was created nearly two decades after gold fever had subsided. By then the Gold Rush's mythic qualities were well established, and new allegories—particularly the American belief in the rewards of hard work and enterprise—can be seen on Nahl's canvas. Other works added to the image of California as a destination for ambitious dreamers, an image that prevails to this day. In bringing together a range of art and archival material such as artists' diaries and contemporary newspaper articlesThe Art of the Gold Rush broadens our understanding of American culture during a memorable period in the nation's history.

The California Gold Rush captured the get-rich dreams of people around the world more completely than almost any event in American history. This catalog, published in celebration of the sesquicentennial of the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, shows the vitality of the arts in the Golden State during the latter nineteenth century and documents the dramatic impact of the Gold Rush on the American imagination.

Among the throngs of gold-seekers in California were artists, many self-taught, others formally trained, and their arrival produced an outpouring of artistic works that provide insights into Gold Rush events, personages, and attitudes. The best-known painting of the Gold Rush era, C.C. Nahl'sSunday Morning in the Mines (1872), was created nearly two decades after gold fever had subsided. By then the Gold Rush's mythic qualities were well established, and new allegories—particularly the American belief in the rewards of hard work and enterprise—can be seen on Nahl's canvas. Other works added to the image of California as a destination for ambitious dreamers, an image that prevails to this day. In bringing together a range of art and archival material such as artists' diaries and contemporary newspaper articlesThe Art of the Gold Rush broadens our understanding of American culture during a memorable period in the nation's history.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD
Stephen C. McGough and Dennis M. Power

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Harvey L. Jones, Janice T. Driesbach, and Katherine C. Holland

LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION

MAP OF THE GOLD COUNTRY

INTRODUCTION
The Lure of Gold
Janice T. Driesbach

FIRST IN THE FIELD
Thomas A. Ayres and E. Hall Martin
Janice T. Driesbach and Harvey L. Jones

SCENES OF MINING LIFE
John Prendergast, Augusto Ferran, William Mcilvaine
W Taber, William Birch McMurtrie, Harrison Eastman
Samuel Stillman Osgood, A. G., John Henry Dunnel
Washington F. Friend, John Woodhouse Audubon
Francis Samuel Marryat, and E. Godchaux
Janice T. Driesbach

PORTRAIT PAINTER TO THE ELITE
William Smith Jewett
Janice T. Driesbach

THE HESSIAN PARTY
Charles Christian Nahl, Arthur Nahl, and August Wenderoth
Harvey L. jones

SOUVENIRS OF THE MOTHER LODE
Ernest Narjot and George Henry Burgess
Harvey L. Jones

MINING THE PICTURESQUE
A. D. 0. Browere
Janice T. Driesbach

IN THE WAKE OF THE GOLD RUSH
Frederick A. Butman, Alexander Edouart, and George Tirrell
Janice T. Driesbach

SENTIMENT AND NOSTALGIA
Charles Christian Nahl, Ernest Narjot, George Henry Burgess
Henry Bacon, and Rufus Wright
Harvey L. Jones

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE ARTISTS
Kathen"ne Church Holland

NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIST OF ARTISTS REPRESENTED IN THE EXHIBITION
INDEX