With its dramatic landscape and rugged beauty, Alberta's Bow Valley region has inspired generations of artists. The Painted Valley brings together a collection of works by local and visiting artists from 1845 to 2000 that depict the region from a wide range of viewpoints and in a captivating variety of styles and moods. Authors Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles were inspired by the art of the Bow Valley region while working on an environmental history of the area. Their research in various museums around Alberta uncovered a large and varied collection of images of the Bow River and surrounding valley, representing a broad array of artistic styles and executed at different times throughout history. From European topographers and military artists to painters commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, from the Group of Seven to modernism and abstraction, these views of the Bow Valley say a great deal about changing attitudes toward nature and the environment as well as the evolution of the artistic community in western Canada.