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Gilbert Munger's quest for distinction

Magazine Antiques, July, 2003 by Michael D. Schroeder, J. Gray Sweeney

In mid-November 1872, during intensely cold snowstorms at the summit of the Sierra Nevada near Donner Pass, an aspiring landscape painter from Connecticut sketched alongside one of the nation's most illustrious artists. "I am now sketching this place with [Albert] Bierstadt [1830-1902]," wrote Gilbert Munger. "We work from sunrise to sunset, muffled up to our eyebrows in furs....We are sketching in the snow, sketching snow-storms and snow effects....I am now familiar with the scenery and know where all the best things are." (1) He went on to relate that Bierstadt "wishes me to accompany him on his sketching tours," but while they stayed in contact over the next five years, (2) Munger and Bierstadt apparently did not sketch together again.

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While today we know much about Bierstadt, Munger's name and artistic achievements had been generally forgotten until recently. In his day he was a highly regarded painter in New York, San Francisco, and London. He socialized with leading scientists and artists. But like many artists of his generation he went largely unnoticed in the twentieth century. His rediscovery by scholars and collectors is a story in which the Internet has played an important part.

Munger began his artistic career in his early teens as an apprentice engraver in Washington, D. C., before the Civil War. He was soon engraving large plates of landscape views and scientific specimens for federal government reports of exploring expeditions. (3) Talent and determination gained him entrance to a circle of explorers, geologists, cartographers, and writers associated with the survey expeditions of the American West. After the war, Munger's first success as a painter, like Bierstadt's, resulted from his production of dramatic images of sites popular with tourists. In the East he tried his hand at painting Niagara Falls, but it was in the Far West, particularly in California, that he gained recognition as one of the nation's most promising artist-explorers.

Munger first traveled west in June 1869 with the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, headed by the charismatic young geologist Clarence King (1842-1901). Working beside landscape photographers Timothy O'Sullivan (1840-1882) and Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), Munger accurately depicted the topography and geology of little-known regions for survey geologists. Monger's western paintings also evoked the poetic sentiments demanded by art connoisseurs schooled in the aesthetic conventions of the Hudson River school. One critic praised both aspects of his work, writing: "He has a conscientious feeling for Nature, and enough poetry to temper the harshness of the real with the softness of the ideal," (4) Another critic suggested that the scientists were the more demanding audience: "It is a further proof of his fidelity to nature that Prof. [Josiah Dwight] Whitney [1819-1896] and several other scientific men here have given him commissions." (5) "Poor Munger!" the writer went on, "We would rather paint for the most exacting connoisseurs than for scientists."

Lake Marian, Humboldt Range, Nevada (P1. II) is a fine example of Munger's work of this period. Both Munger and King were inspired by the visual drama of this perfectly symmetrical alpine lake, which King described as a "Giant's Bowl" carved from the earth's oldest, hardest rock by glaciers. (6) Munger painted at least four versions of the scene. One was loaned to Yale College (now University) in New Haven, Connecticut, where it was shown to geology students. Another was acquired by King, an art connoisseur and avid collector as well as a scientist and writer. Munger was especially fortunate to become friends with King, who for many years provided him with access to the worlds of science and art. Munger did the illustrations for King's magnum opus, Systematic Geology, (7) volume one of the government published records of the fortieth parallel survey. The ten chromolithographs produced from his oil sketches, such as Summits--Wahsatch Range--Utah (P1. III), are compelling images of western exploration of the 18 70s.

At the end of his first season with the survey, Munger arrived in San Francisco on October 31, 1869, and quickly rose to the top of the hurly-burly art market there. He painted the scenery around the Golden Gate from Monterey Bay to Mann County Along the Monterey Peninsula (Pl. iV) demonstrates that his mastery of luminous effects of sea and sky was highly developed. The composition shows Carmel Bay with Point Lobos in the distance at the left. (Today you might see Tiger Woods playing golf along this stretch of seashore.) His work was praised in the San Francisco press. Of Mount Tamalpais from San Rafael (Pl. V) one critic wrote, "If we wanted to send a 'sample chip' of California...we might send this picture with complete confidence and satisfaction." (8)

From San Francisco Munger made his first visit to the Yosemite Valley in 1870. While he produced many paintings of Yosemite, only one of exhibition scale has been located. Yosemite Valley (Pl. VII) provides a dramatic, yet authentic representation of twilight in the valley that hour, King declared, when "there is no more splendid contrast of light and shade." (9) Munger's western paintings are often dramatic like Bierstadt's, but he did not invent marvels of topography to enhance the drama, as Bierstadt's, did in several major works.

Gilbert Munger's quest for distinction

Magazine Antiques, July, 2003 by Michael D. Schroeder, J. Gray Sweeney

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