Lot 39: Another owner WILLIAM JACOB HAYS (1830-1875) Dakota Badlands, 1860 signed "W.J. Hays" (lower left)

inscribed "Dakota Badlands, 1860" (on reverse) oil and pencil on artist's board 13 3/4 x 24 1/2 in. (35 x 62.2 cm) Provenance Private Collection, Long Island, NY A resident of the famous 10th Street Studio and a friend and correspondent of Church, Heade, and Kensett, William Jacob Hays was the best known of America's mid-19th century animal painters. Although he also painted domestic pets and orchids, Hays gained his greatest reknown for his depictions of American wildlife, most notably the bison, elk, deer and antelope of the Western prairies. The key event in his career was his five-month trip up the Missouri River in 1860, which took him to the Dakotas, Montana, and Yellowstone. This is the only known landscape that he painted during that tour. In its plein-air immediacy of observation, it not only captures the surreal topography of the Dakota Badlands, but also the brilliance of Western light. We are grateful to Dr. Bruce Chambers for cataloguing this lot.