A Gorgeous Depiction of the Colorado Rockies

Charles Morgan McIlhenney (1858-1904)
The Rockies Beyond
Oil on canvas
Framed size: 31 1/4” x 49 1/2”
Canvas size: 23 1/2” x 41 1/2”
Signed l.r.: CM McIlhenney


Charles Morgan McIlhenney’s panoramic painting of the Colorado Rockies is a marvelous representation of the “unblemished” American western landscape. The magnificent composition depicts a crystal-colored river meandering through a series of verdant fields. The lush greenery is peppered with trees and boulders. To the left of the river is a small Indian encampment, complete with burning fire, and above and beyond it are a group of mammoth-sized mountains. The peak located in the far background of the work, however, is the most awe-inspiring of all. It is entirely blanketed with snow and through its sheer size hovers over the rest of the composition. This work is a wonderful example of a nineteenth-century, picturesque painting, and an important, albeit nostalgic, document of the postbellum American West.

C.M. McIlhenney was a gifted painter of landscape, cattle and sheep who received his training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He also studied privately under Frank Briscoe. McIlhenney spent several years on a sketching trip in the South Pacific before returning to the United States in 1881 and settling in New York. Seven years later, McIlhenney married Ada Ingersoll and achieved his first taste of professional success in the 1890s when he won the Academy’s Julius Hallgarten Prize. This honor followed upon his election to Associate membership and his winning of the Evans Prize at the American Water Color Society’s annual exhibition of 1892. Afterwards, McIlhenney began exhibiting frequently with the Water Color Society. His works were also featured in exhibitions at the Macbeth Galleries in New York. Though he demonstrated immense artistic promise, McIlhenney met an untimely end in 1904 at the age of forty-six.

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