An Unlikely Partnership Makes Sense by Don Wilkinson The New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (NBWNHP) is a 16-acre urban park spread over thirteen city blocks, many of them cobblestoned, and is part of the National Park Service (NPS). In 2014, the NBWNHP approached the New Bedford Art Museum/Artworks! (NBAM/AW!) to invite it to participate in the centennial anniversary celebration of the NPS. It was decided that the museum would host an exhibition of works by the famed 19th century landscape painter of the American West, Albert Bierstadt. Born in Solingen, Rhine Province, Prussia in 1830, Bierstadt moved to New Bedford with his family the following year. But why a Bierstadt show to celebrate the NPS? There is a meandering, far-reaching connective thread. His paintings of the frontier, when exhibited and copied and published back East during the years in the … [Read more...] about Bierstadt in New Bedford