Emigrants Crossing the Plains

Albert Bierstadt’s painting Emigrants Crossing the Plains has long held a place of honor at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, offering a sweeping and romantic vision of the westward migration and the diverse nature of the frontier. Bierstadt, a German-born American painter associated with the Hudson River School, was renowned for his grand, dramatic landscapes that captured both the beauty and the myth of the American West. Through works like this, he not only documented the nation’s expansion but also shaped how generations would imagine the frontier experience.