1837 -1926 · Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and American monumental landscape

Burning canyons, geysers and dizzying peaks make Thomas Moran the spectacular interpreter of the American West.

Thomas Moran was born in Bolton, England in 1837 and died in Santa Barbara in 1926. His family emigrated to Philadelphia as a child; an apprentice wood engraver, he acquired the precision of a designer and soon worked as an illustrator. Turner's discovery, explored in depth during a trip to England in 1862, freed his color and taste from atmospheres. In 1871, Moran accompanied Ferdinand V. Hayden's geological expedition to Yellowstone, alongside photographer William Henry Jackson. His watercolors, drawings and large canvases made the canyons, springs and geysers of a still little-known territory visible to the public; they participate in the imagination that accompanies the creation of the first national park in 1872. The Colorado Chasm then transformed the Grand Canyon surveys into a panoramic vision, while The Mount of the Holy Cross elevated a natural phenomenon into a national symbol. Moran travels regularly to the West, but also paints the coasts, Mexico and Venice. His landscape is never a simple transcription: field sketches, memory, photography and workshop composition come together to amplify scale, light and drama. Prolific watercolorist, painter, engraver and illustrator, he gives the great American sites a lasting visual form, between scientific observation and romantic sublime. The "Thomas Moran" selection notably compares The Mount of the Holy Cross and The Colorado Chasm. His reading favors drawing.

In Moran, geology becomes theater: light measures the immensity and transforms the territory into an experience of the sublime.