Powell Exploring the Grand Canyon

After carefully studying the journal of explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell, artist Ralph Stackpole was inspired to depict Powell’s first descent into the Grand Canyon. Stackpole’s bas relief shows the explorer and his companions guiding their boats down the narrow, perilous rapids of the Colorado River. Powell, a veteran of the Civil War, had lost his arm at the Battle of Shiloh. The exploration began on May 24, 1869, on the Green River in Wyoming and lasted three months, until August 29, 1869. Powell and his team created maps and described distinct natural features throughout the nearly 1,000 miles they traversed. Years later, in 1881, Powell would become the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Ralph Stackpole was born in 1885 in Williams, Oregon. In 1903, Stackpole moved to San Francisco to begin studying at the California School of Design. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, New York benefactors enabled him to study sculpture and painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Stackpole returned to San Francisco in 1912, where he remained active as a prominent artist and art instructor until his move to France in 1949.