This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

Lake Tahoe experienced rapid growth after World War II. Residential populations at the lake grew steadily, and with the rise of the ski industry and other recreation businesses, the number of visitors to the lake skyrocketed. Growth and development in the region reached a tipping point in the 1950s and 1960s, as plans for high-rise casinos, shoreline freeways, sprawling ski resorts, landfill marinas, and a four-lane concrete bridge across Emerald Bay gained forward momentum.

In 1957, a gathering of concerned conservationists formed what became known as The League to Save Lake Tahoe. They coined the iconic tagline, “Keep Tahoe Blue,” a conservationist slogan that remains popular to this day. The attitude that unchecked growth at the lake was a foregone conclusion precipitated local resistance, and ultimately led to a unique bi-state agreement governing planning and management of the lake and its resources.

Today millions of people visit the Tahoe/Donner region annually and nearly 50,000 people call it their permanent home. In the twenty-first century, one’s experience of Tahoe is sure to be mediated by commercial enterprise, advertising, and limited access to much of the lake’s privately-owned shore. Contemporary artists and architects invite us to look carefully at how this human presence impacts the fragile Lake Tahoe basin.

This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

While the Civil War raged in the eastern United States and Tahoe’s lumber industry rose to prominence to service Nevada’s booming Comstock mines, the Lake Tahoe region began its transformation into a landscape of tourism, leisure, and recreation. Easy railroad and automobile access to the region accelerated the growth of resorts around the lake in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Lake Tahoe became a place of rest and repose for the social and economic elite.

During this time resorts began to flourish, including Tahoe Tavern and the Grand Central Hotel near Tahoe City, the Glenbrook Inn on the east shore, and the Tallac Hotel on the south shore. As the region became more settled and accessible, artists could easily fold a visit to Lake Tahoe into their Pacific Coast travels, which might have also included a stay at Yosemite.

Many artists produced nostalgic or romantic images of the region, which were readily purchased as souvenirs by visitors and tourists. At the same time, many ofthe San Francisco Bay area’s most prominent architects were commissioned to design private residences in the Lake Tahoe basin, forever changing the nature of its built environment.

This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

In 1878, John Muir derided “the outlandish noise of loggers and choppers and screaming mills” that he witnessed during his stay at Lake Tahoe. The towering pine, cedar, and juniper stands in the Tahoe basin were quickly falling in the name of progress. Lumber was needed to construct railroad trestles and snow sheds over Donner Pass, to buttress the burgeoning underground mines of the Comstock, and to power the steam locomotives used to transport and process the ore. As populations and tourism increased in the region, timber was also used for resort and lodge structures on the panoramic shores of the lake.

The first sawmill at Lake Tahoe was built in 1860. The invention of the V-shaped flume and the completion of a narrow-gauge railroad vastly accelerated the transport of timber out of the Tahoe Basin. Muir returned to Lake Tahoe in 1888 and was deeply distressed by what he saw. Hillsides once covered in trees were barren. With the support of the railroad lobby and local timber baron Duane Bliss (who had, ironically, turned his logging property at Glenbrook into a tourist resort), Muir worked hard to have Lake Tahoe declared a national park. He came within only a few of the necessary votes in Congress, but the measure failed in 1889.

By 1900, almost a billion board feet of lumber had been removed from the Tahoe Basin and 60 percent of its lands had been harvested. Nineteenth-century painters and photographers rarely depicted the transformed landscape, and the few examples showing such subject matter are rare. In the twenty-first century, however, it is common for contemporary artists to explore issues related to forest conservation, reclamation, fire management, and sustainability in the region. Their work is on view alongside that of their historical predecessors.

This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

In 1844, trapper and frontiersman Elisha Stevens safely guided the first American emigrant wagons across the Sierra Nevada to California over what came to be known as Donner Pass. Two years later, the Donner Party sought to repeat this trek, but snow stranded them near the lake that would later bear the Donner name. Because of this disaster, a region destined to develop into a world-class destination first entered American history through a dystopian scenario of starvation, death, murder, and cannibalism.

One might think that the tragedy of the Donner Party would have provided a warning for generations to come. In the American West, however, dystopia remained a recurrent possibility. The Sierra Nevada and Donner Pass stood as a barrier to America’s desire to expand westward. As the transcontinental railroad neared completion in 1869, over 20,000 men were employed by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies in some capacity. Around 12,000 of them were Chinese immigrants working in the treacherous Sierra canyons. Accidents, avalanches, and explosions, according to some reports, left as many as 1,200 Chinese laborers dead.

The nineteenth-century paintings and photographs of Donner Pass seen throughout this exhibition tend to offer romantic views of picturesque rail cars and pristine landscapes. Whether intentionally or not, artists typically marginalized or ignored the presence of Chinese workers. Many Chinese and Chinese-American artists working today seek to revisit this visual history, producing artworks in a variety of media to honor and memorialize the stories of those who perished during the construction of the railroad.

This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

The Sierra Nevada range was a physical and symbolic obstacle to America’s western expansion in the nineteenth century. The legendary struggles of the Donner Party in the winter of 1847, along with an enterprising drive to surmount the summit via railroad, fueled a young nation’s “Manifest Destiny” to stretch its boundary from coast to coast. Artists depicted Donner Lake, the closest body of water to Donner Summit, more frequently than any other in the Sierra range. Unlike the flat, picturesque expanse of Lake Tahoe’s surface, the view of Donner Lake from the summit offered a dramatic, sublime vista layered with historical and symbolic significance.

Visiting artists, photographers, and other tourists often lodged at the Summit Hotel near the top of Donner Pass. Built in 1870, the hotel was a way station for travelers on the Central Pacific Railroad (completed in 1869) and a destination from which travelers could explore the surrounding mountain terrain. For the most part, early photographers such as Alfred A. Hart, Andrew Russell, and Carleton E. Watkins, as well as painters including Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Hill, were drawn to the region because of lucrative commissions provided by railroad executives who sought grand images to celebrate and promote their transcontinental accomplishments.

The American conquest of the now-legendary summit predicted not only the joining of east and west with rails of steel, but the development of the entire far western United States—to which the Tahoe region stood as both barrier and gateway.

This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

During the Golden Age of American landscape painting in the second half of the nineteenth century, Lake Tahoe and its nearby lakes inspired paintings by artists who were primarily associated with the burgeoning art world of San Francisco. Lake Tahoe itself did not become a subject for serious artists until the 1860s after the discovery of silver on the nearby Comstock. Early tourists to the lake included the influential Unitarian minister, Thomas Starr King, who visited in the summer of 1863 and delivered a rapturous sermon on the beauties of the lake to San Franciscans upon his return—surely enticing many artists to visit.

From the 1860s through the 1880s Lake Tahoe was depicted by artists with an enhanced sense of realism known as the Hudson River School style. Painters associated with that style sought out beautiful natural landscapes and executed their paintings with considerable realism. At the same time, they sought to convey a spiritual or transcendental presence in their paintings to underscore the widely held nineteenth-century belief in nature’s divine origins. Like the California geologists John Muir and Joseph LeConte, many artists believed that nature was God’s handiwork. Painters visiting the Sierra reproduced natural features in ways that inspired thoughts of divinity: mountains were sublime and still water serene.

Many of America’s most noted nineteenth-century artists including  Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, William Keith, John Ross Key, and William Marple considered Lake Tahoe a worthy subject for their landscape paintings. For most city dwellers of the time, the Sierra was considered a remote wilderness destination. However, one might experience a taste of the wilderness through the vicarious agency of a landscape painting. Contemplating a spiritually charged view of the lake in one’s San Francisco or New York living room could provide much of the same magic as being there in person. When exposed to a beautiful painting, the clamor and stress of urban life might be forgotten.

This theme comprises one section of the museum-wide exhibition, Tahoe: A Visual History.

Nineteenth-century American understanding of the Sierra Nevada was shaped by the maps, sketches, photographs, paintings, and written accounts produced by the first Euro-American pioneers to visit the region. John C. Frémont, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, is considered the first Euro-American to view Lake Tahoe on February 14, 1844 from Red Lake Mountain, a peak near what is today Carson Pass. The body of water we now call Lake Tahoe was referred to variously in the nineteenth century as Mountain Lake, Lake Bonpland, and Lake Bigler.

The discovery, mapping, depiction, and cultural assimilation of Lake Tahoe by Euro-Americans is linked to the exploration and settlement of the Great Basin—the last region of the United States to be officially explored and defined by the federal government. After Tahoe’s initial discovery by Euro-Americans, most early nineteenth century pioneers approached the Sierra from the east, after passing through the long desert stretches of the Great Basin.

By the mid-1850s, wagon roads through the Sierra, constructed primarily to service gold and silver mines, became better defined. These routes made the region accessible to travelers from both eastward  and westward directions—including artists and photographers.

The Nevada Museum of Art is proud to present to our community The Horse, a comprehensive exhibition detailing the enduring bond between horses and humanity. The exhibition explores early interactions between horses and humans and portrays how horses have, over time, influenced civilization through advancements in warfare, trade, transportation, agriculture, sports, and many other facets of human life. The exhibition was created by leading scholars and scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Dioramas, skeletal mounts, fossils, cultural artifacts from around the world, and interactive computerized modules – will draw visitors into the world of the horse as never before. An immersive multi-media experience, The Horse explores our history, inter-dependence, and emotional connection with this remarkable animal.

The Horse is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH); the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau-Ottawa; The Field Museum, Chicago; and the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Premiere Sponsor

Louise A. Tarble Foundation

Lead Sponsors

Barrick Gold; The Bretzlaff Foundation; Irene and J. George Drews; The Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation; Anne Brockinton Lee and Robert M. Lee

Major Sponsors

Damonte Ranch, Perry M. DiLoreto; Deborah C. Day; Dickson Realty; Hooker Creek Ranch; Nevada Arts Council; Sandy Raffealli, Raffealli Family Trust; Wells Fargo; E. L. Wiegand Foundation

Supporting Sponsors

Kathie Bartlett; Leah Elizabeth Cashman and Rhonda Cashman Evans; Marshall R. Matley Foundation; Jennifer and Jason Patterson; Gigi and Lash Turville; Whittier Trust Company of Nevada

Additional Sponsors

Answerwest; Jeanne Blach; Marc Grock; Clark J. Guild Jr. Charitable Foundation; Charlotte and Dick McConnell; Karen and Bill Prezant

Media Sponsors

Getaway Reno-Tahoe; KUNR; Lake Tahoe TV; Reno-Tahoe International Airport; Tahoe Quarterly; Western Art & Architecture

Jennifer Steinkamp is among today’s best-known contemporary artists working in the field of new media art. Fly to Mars is a computer-animated projection of a tree that comes to life with movement as it cycles through the four seasons of the year. From colorful flowering buds in spring to leafless branches in winter, viewers experience the natural cycle of a tree’s foliage. Simultaneously, the tree bows up and down, as though attempting to break free from the earth’s gravity and take flight into the cosmos.

This exhibition is presented as part of the Art + Environment series, an initiative of the Nevada Museum of Art that brings together community, artists and scholars to explore the interaction between people and their environments.

During the Depression-era of the 1930s and 40s, thousands of artists throughout the United States were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project to design public murals for post offices, government buildings, and outdoor spaces. Southern California-based Helen Lundeberg was commissioned in 1940 to design a mural illustrating the history of the transportation era. Lundeberg’s highly-detailed and superbly-crafted study for the mural was eventually realized in full-scale near Centinela Park in Inglewood, California. The imagery includes references to Native American ways of life, Spanish-era exploration, the contributions of Asian laborers to railroad construction, the introduction of the automobile, and the popularization of public transportation.

The works in this exhibition were recently added to the Nevada Museum of Art’s E.L. Wiegand Collection, whose thematic focus is on the work ethic in American art.