Purple mountain’s majesties

Thumbnail sketches these are not. Measuring 6’ x 10’, the painting “Autumn in the Sierras,” pictured, is a massive piece of work, from 19th-century German-American artist Albert Bierstadt, whose oils were fashionable acquisitions during the robber-baron era. It’s fitting, then, that the Crocker Art Museum will host the traveling exhibition Primal Visions: Albert Bierstadt “Discovers” America, 1859-1893, which opens Saturday, June 1, and will run through July 22. Over 50 paintings, prints and photographs by Bierstadt and contemporaries Thomas and Edward Moran, Frederic E. Church, George Catlin, Karl Bodmer and Eadweard Muybridge, many of which depict a virginal American West, will be on display. The museum will also host a courtyard dinner on Friday, July 7, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.; see www.crockerartmuseum.com for details. The Crocker, located at 216 O St., is open Tuesday-Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Thursday to 9 p.m.