German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902 Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career. Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.  Related Paintings of Albert Bierstadt :. | Scene in the Sierra Nevada | Indian Summer on the Hudson River | Bernese Alps, oil on canvas | Autumn Woods | Conway Valley New Hampshire |
Related Artists:
KNUPFER, Nicolaus
Dutch/German painter (c. 1603-1655)
Luis Paret y alcazar
Spanish Rococo Era Painter, 1746-1799 was a Spanish painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period. He was born in Madrid he first trained with Antonio Gonz??lez Velazquez and attended the Academia Real de San Fernando in Madrid, where he won a second prize in a painting contest in 1760, and first prize in 1766. He entered the studio of the French painter Charles de la Traverse, who worked for the Marchese of Ossun, the ambassador of France in Spain. Unfortunately upon returning to Madrid, despite becoming a teacher in the Academia de San Fernando at age 33 years, he mainly received royal commissions to paint and engrave vistas of ports, the Spanish equivalent of vedute, and also of planned works of construction. For some years, he was banished to Puerto Rico, where he trained the painter Jose Campeche.
Kuhn Walt
American cartoonist and painter, 1877-1949 was an American painter and was an organizer of the modern art Armory Show of 1913, which was the first of its genre in America. Kuhn was born in Brooklyn, New York City. At 15, Kuhn sold his first drawings to a magazine and signed his name ??Walt.?? In 1893, he enrolled in art classes at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. In 1899, Kuhn set out for California with only $60 in his pocket. Upon his arriving in San Francisco, he became an illustrator for WASP Magazine. In 1901, Walt left for Paris, where he briefly studied art at the Acad??mie Colarossi before leaving to the Royal Academy in Munich. Once in the capital of Bavaria, he studied under Heinrich von Zugel (1850-1941), a member of the Barbizon School. In 1903, he returned to New York and was employed as an illustrator for local journals. In 1905, he held his first exhibition at the Salmagundi Club, establishing himself as both a cartoonist and a serious painter. In this same year, he completed his first illustrations for LIFE magazine. When the New York School of Art moved to Fort Lee, NJ in the summer of 1908, Kuhn joined the faculty.