35. Thomas Moran
(1837-1926)

The Rapids Above Niagara

(click on image to print)
Moran, The Rapids Above

The Rapids Above Niagara

Etching, 1886, 152 x 203 mm., Klackner 51, Gilcrease Inst. 58. Fine impression, printed with plate tone in the sky, wiped clean elsewhere, on wove paper with smallish, slightly irregular margins, signed in pencil. Although the work is an etched interpretation of one of his own paintings, the etching style is as free and spontaneous as if the artist were working from life, not at all like the formal style of the prior etching after a Daubigny painting. Moran was attracted by the sublime in nature and endeavored to convey it, whatever the scale, and there is no question here about the power of the water. A very effective work.