Karl bodmer biography
- Johann Carl Bodmer (11 February 1809 – 30 October 1893) was a Swiss-French printmaker, etcher, lithographer, zinc engraver, draughtsman, painter.
- Swiss-born Karl Bodmer (1809–1893) was one of the first and most accomplished European artists to document the landscape of the North.
- Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) was a Swiss artist best known for his participation in Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied's Missouri River Expedition.
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Karl Bodmer (1809–1893)
Among the early artists to explore the trans-Mississippi River frontier, Karl Bodmer’s stay in St. Louis was perhaps the briefest. Yet his extraordinary frontier images produced during a scientific expedition across North America from 1832 to 1834 are some of the most artistically accomplished images of western North America from the early nineteenth century.
The son of a cotton manufacturer, Karl Bodmer was born in Zurich, Switzerland, on February 2, 1809. At thirteen years of age his family apprenticed him to study art with his uncle, Johann Jacob Meier, from whom he learned drawing and painting. In 1828 Bodmer settled in the German city Koblenz and became well known for his engraved portfolios of picturesque views of the scenic Rhineland. In 1832 his popular prints attracted the attention of Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, a wealthy scientist and naturalist. Maximilian had explored South America in 1815 following the scientific theories of Alexander von Humboldt in search of the origins of humanity. Criticized for his own drawin
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Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) artist
| The pencil sketch shown here of Karl Bodmer, dated 1850, is signed by the artist, Jean-François Millet. Permission and credit: S. P. Avery Collection |
Johann Carl Bodmer was born in Zürich, Switzerland. When he was thirteen years old, his mother's brother, Johann Jakob Meier, became Carl's teacher. Meier was an artist, having studied under the well-known artists Heinrich Füssli and Gabriel Lory. Young Carl and his older brother, Rudolf, joined their uncle on artistic travels throughout their home country. (Carl changed the spelling to Karl in about 1850.)
A major turning point in Bodmer's life was his being contracted to the Prinz Maximilian zu Wied-Neuweid. Known popularly to naturalists then and even now as Prince Max, this German aristocrat, having successfully led a scientific expedition to Brazil in 1815-1817, decided to embark on another such venture, this time to North America.
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Exhibition Overview
Swiss-born Karl Bodmer (1809–1893) was one of the first and most accomplished European artists to document the landscape of the North American interior and its Indigenous peoples. He was hired by the German explorer and naturalist Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, to accompany an expedition to the northwestern reaches of the Missouri River in 1833–34. Together they traveled from Saint Louis through the tribal lands of the Omaha, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Blackfoot, among many Plains nations where Bodmer executed watercolor portraits in situ. A meticulous draftsman, he produced portraits that are notable for their sensitivity of depiction and subtle, refined brushwork. Bodmer’s precise observation of his sitters—in facial likeness, body decoration, and regalia—conveys eyewitness testimony to the lives of specific individuals and the complexity of cultural encounters. The exhibition features thirty-five portraits, along with six landscape and genre scenes, and several related aquatints, all from the comprehensive Bodmer holdings
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