Artist · 11 prints
Karl Bodmer Prints
About Karl Bodmer
Karl Bodmer was a Swiss artist, born in Zurich on February 11, 1809, and he died in Paris on October 30, 1893. He learned drawing and engraving from his uncle, the engraver Johann Jakob Meier. In 1832, while working in Germany, he was hired by the naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied to record an expedition to North America, and the two traveled up the Missouri River from St. Louis as far as Fort McKenzie in present-day Montana, wintering at Fort Clark near the Mandan villages.
Bodmer's watercolors from that journey are among the most careful early pictures of the peoples of the Upper Missouri, including Mandan, Hidatsa and Assiniboine sitters, and of the river landscape. They were reproduced as 81 aquatints (an etching method that imitates watercolor washes) for Maximilian's travel book, published in German in 1839 to 1841 and in English in 1843 to 1844. Bodmer later settled in Barbizon, France, painting forest landscapes and animals. The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha holds the largest collection of his American work.
Karl Bodmer prints: reproductions of the animal and landscape pictures Karl Bodmer made from the 1830s to the 1860s, most of them from his later years painting the forests around Barbizon, France. The collection includes Mouth of the Fox River, Indiana (1832), Landscape with Deer (1840), Hare Pursued by a Goshawk (1858), Evening: Stag and Herons (1858) and Deer at Rest (1860).
This selection centers on Bodmer's wildlife. Deer appear most often, resting, drinking and moving through woodland, with wild boar, pheasants, ducks, herons and a hunting goshawk alongside. The settings are forest edges, ponds and watering holes, often in evening or winter light. The one American view, of the Fox River in Indiana, comes from his journey to North America with Prince Maximilian.
The muted greens and browns suit studies, libraries, bedrooms and country-style kitchens, and the deer and bird scenes work well in groups along a hallway or staircase. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
