By Peter Fish, Sunset Editor-at-Large

Thomas Moran, "Toltec Gorge, Colorado" 1881
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Not every art exhibition doubles as a summer vacation planner. But Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape does just that. The show, which comes from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in Manhattan, is now on view (through May 4) at Stanford University’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts.

As Tourism and the American Landscape reminds you, Church and Homer and Moran were sort of the Travel Channel of their era. Working in engraving and water color and oil, they showed 19th century Americans how wild and beautiful their country was, from the coast of Maine (Homer) to the Hudson Valley (Church) to the Rocky Mountains (Moran) and Yosemite Valley (photographer Carlton Watkins).  Once they saw the art, Americans clamored to see the real thing. Which as it happens is one reason Sunset Magazine is here—we started out as a magazine for tourists traveling west on the Southern Pacific’s Sunset Limited.

Tourism and the American Landscape will probably stir some dreams of travel in you, too. Stroll, relax  (in a very nice touch) in one of gallery’s Adirondack chairs, admire the art. If you’re like us, it will be about 30 seconds before you start thinking, I could squeeze in a Yosemite visit sometime in April..