Smoky Range, Allegheny Mountains

One of the icons of the Reading Public Museum, Christopher Shearer’s monumental painting was one of the earliest to enter the art collection. Shearer recounts the history of the painting before it entered the Museum’s collection in 1913: “…in the year 1887, I began painting the large “Smoky Range Mountain” picture. This canvass [sic] was painted with the express hope that it would be possessed by Reading, the artist’s birthplace, as a monument to his memory. The canvass [sic], being 8 x 16 feet, required a large room in which to paint it. This room was provided by the Fairmount Park commission in Philadelphia, which gave the large hall in the Randolph Mansion....”