Thomas Hill

As North America’s tallest waterfall, rising 2,425 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor, the physicality, size, and symbolic potential of Yosemite Falls presented a challenge for artists.

Thomas Hill, a San Francisco-based painter associated with the Hudson River School of landscape painting, chose a vertical composition to capture the grandness of the popular tourist site. He even included a small fisherman in the foreground to convey the scale of the scene. This is one of many paintings Hill created depicting scenes of the Yosemite Valley.