The Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite
Carleton E. Watkins American
Not on view
In the 1850s and 1860s, Yosemite Valley was the primary destination for landscape painters and photographers in California. Although the site was cared for by and home to Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, early White settlers often speciously described it as America’s "Eden"—a place of pristine, untouched wilderness. Watkins made his first trip to Yosemite in 1861, producing one hundred stereo views and thirty mammoth plates (unusually large glass negatives), including this one. To adequately capture the grandeur of the 225-foot sequoia tree, he adopted a vertical format and included four figures at its base for scale. Prints from his mammoth plates were subsequently exhibited at the Goupil Gallery in New York, where they introduced easterners to the magnificence of Yosemite.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
