Works from the Western art collection of Ted Turner, the media mogul who founded CNN in 1980 and died this year aged 87, will go on sale at Christie's in New York on 20 January. The sale carries a total estimate of around $20 million, and the proceeds will go to the Turner Foundation, which supports conservation and environmental stewardship.

The highlight is Albert Bierstadt's Yosemite Valley, painted in 1866, which hung above a fireplace at Turner's ranch in Montana. The collection also includes two landscapes of the Grand Canyon by Thomas Moran. Both artists were expedition painters of the American West, travelling with government surveys in the 1860s and 1870s and painting the landscapes they found on their return. Moran joined a survey of the Montana and Wyoming territories in 1871, and his paintings of the region helped build support for the creation of Yellowstone National Park the following year.

Turner's family said the paintings meant a great deal to him not only for their beauty but because they reflected what he loved about nature and the outdoors. They added that the family takes comfort in knowing the works will be appreciated by others, and that the sale is another chance to carry forward his lifelong commitment to giving back, with the proceeds going directly to the foundation.

The sale also underlines a tension in the pictures themselves. The surveys that produced them were financed by Congress as part of westward expansion, and the changes that followed were rapid and severe for Native peoples, including the loss of land under the Dawes Act of 1887. The Turner Foundation funds projects supporting American natural systems, and in 2025 it reported making more than $2.7 million in grants, including funding for the International Crane Foundation and the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory.