Art

In 1871, artist Thomas Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson joined the survey team of the Hayden Geological Survey in their exploration of the Yellowstone region. Because so few people at the time had witnessed the grandeur of the western landscapes, Jackson's photographs and Moran's paintings captivated the nation and helped inspire Congress to make Yellowstone the first national park in 1872 and create the National Park Service in 1916. Since then, many artists and photographers such as Albert Bierstadt and Ansel Adams have found inspiration at national parks and monuments.

Today, the National Park Service also offers an Artist-In-Residence program at places like Grand Canyon, Acadia, Denali and Glacier National Park to name a few. This program gives two-dimensional visual artists, photographers, sculptors, performers, writers, composers, and craft artists the opportunity to live and work in the parks.

The painting below was created and donated to Tuzigoot National Monument by Robert Tupper—an inmate, watercolor artist, and father—who has never visited Tuzigoot. For more infomation about Mr. Tupper, you can visit his website. Mr. Tupper writes:

I hope you will find my work to be well and good and of use to the park and visitors. My goal is to earn a name as a painter of fine watercolors as well as some kind of good name for my children… What I hope people will get from my paintings is that even though I'm an inmate not all inmates are "throw aways." I love my country and with so many men and women fighting for our country I'm unable to serve, so I hope to serve my country with my artwork.