Lewis and Clark at the Mouth of the Columbia

Seltzer depicts the triumphant arrival of the Corps of Discovery at the Pacific Ocean in November 1805. Clark recorded the moment with the famous words “Ocian in view! O! the joy!” (though they had actually seen the wide Columbia estuary, not the ocean itself). Seltzer, a Montana artist and protégé of Charles Russell, painted numerous Western scenes with careful attention to landscape and historical detail.