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Smelting Works at Denver
by Thomas Moran
About the Artwork
For today's viewers of Thomas Moran’s watercolor, the sight of factory smoke pouring into pristine mountain air might prophesy environmental ruin. Yet within the context of America’s western expansion, the imagery of factories was more ambiguous. Some in Moran's time regarded the factories as a force of destruction, while others interpreted them as symbols of progress. Moran himself viewed Denver’s budding industry with enthusiasm, writing positively to his wife about the city’s growth since he first visited while part of a government survey in 1873. Two decades later, when Moran returned to Denver to paint advertisements for the Santa Fe Railroad, smelting—the extraction of metal from heated rock—had transformed the city into an industrial hub. Although the brooding tone of this watercolor is unlike the artist’s bright, misty-eyed paintings of Edenic splendor, his depiction of the west’s emerging industrial landscape reinforces the same myth of manifest destiny—the belief that settler conquest of Native American lands was inevitable and justified—by illustrating the land’s richness in natural resources. Like the English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner, whose style he emulated, Moran was primarily interested in the pictorial possibilities of industry. In this impressionistic study, Moran manipulates gray wash and white gouache to capture the vaporous quality of smoke and clouds as the two substances, industrial and natural, dissipate into the yellow atmosphere.
Inscriptions
signed, lower left, in graphite: [artist's monogram: TM] Moran; signed, lower right, in graphite: smelting works at Denver / T. Moran: June 12th 1892
Provenance
1926-1927: (The Milch Galleries, New York, NY, cat no. 53.) 1927: (Biltmore Salon, Los Angeles, CA, January 1927, cat. no. 6, sold.) 1927?-1938: Henry A. [1856-1917] and Josephine P. [1866-1938] Everett, Cleveland, OH. 1938-: Bequest of Josephine P. Everett to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection.
Exhibition history
The Most Remarkable Scenery: Thomas Moran's Watercolors of the American West. Amon Carter Museum (organizer) (May 23-July 13, 1980); The Cleveland Museum of Art (August 5-October 5, 1980); Yale University Art Gallery (October 23, 1980-January 4, 1981). America Draws. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1984-March 17, 1985). Thomas Moran Retrospective. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (September 28, 1997-January 11, 1998). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Thomas Moran (American, born England, 1837–1926)
- Date
- 1892
- Medium
- watercolor and gouache
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 24 x 31.8 cm (9 7/16 x 12 1/2 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection
- Accession no.
- 1938.56
More by Thomas Moran in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011036
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