After Lewis and Clark

In 1804 the official charge to Merriwether Lewis and William Clark from President Thomas Jefferson was to document the topography, geology and ecology of the land between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean for the future benefit and knowledge of the American people. In effect they were given the task of discovering and documenting a trade route across the continent.

In the summer of 1999 Tony Foster spent three months doing a series of journeys on foot and by canoe and kayak working specifically in the section of the journey which was uncharted before the Lewis & Clark expedition.

He travelled and painted along the unspoilt sections of the Missouri from its confluence with the Milk River in Montana up to Lemhi Pass, on sections of the Blackfoot, Yellowstone and Jefferson rivers. Over the continental divide he worked along the Lollo Trail, the Clearwater and Pelouse rivers and at the confluence of the Snake and the Columbia rivers.

Tony did not set out with the idea of reenacting their journey but rather of using it as the thread onto which he could string his watercolour diaries like jewels on a necklace. However he did set out hoping to see everything, as they had, with an open mind.

In his work Tony has recorded something of the grandeur of the scenery and his love of all wild and unspoilt places.

The catalogue is unusual in that it also reviews the work of three earlier artists who painted in the same region and with something of the same passion - George Catlin, (b 1796, d1872), Nicholas Point, S.J. (b 1799, d 1868) and Thomas Moran (b 1837, d 1926). Tony Foster himself was born in 1946.

The resulting exhibition of twenty-two paintings has been shown at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts & Humanities, Idaho, and at the Boise Art Museum, Idaho

Copies of Tony Foster's forty-eight page After Lewis and Clark illustrated exhibition catalogue may be obtained from the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, Idaho, (Telephone 208.726.9491 e-mail svcenter@micron.net ) priced at $15 including postage.

Ten of the illustrations are shown below - please click on each small picture to see its enlargement. The catalogue plate numbers are shown against the titles of the enlargements, but, because only a selection of the plates is shown, the sequence starts with 5 and has gaps.

The diary note shown below each enlargement is transcribed from the painting itself.