TVM 2nd Floor: 19th C. American Post Civil War Art -- Overview

american overview
post civil war
pre civil war

American Post Civil War Art

1865 to 1900

Martin Johnson Heade

born: 1819
died: 1904

Practically unknown in his own day, Heade today is widely recognized as one of the
greatest American romantic painters, and is unique in having been equally able as a
landscape painter and as a master of the floral still life.

Approaching Thunder Storm
1859

Roses and Heliotrope
on a Marble Table Top
1862

Roses in
a Salamander
Vase
1883-95

William Holbrook Beard

born: 1824
died: 1900

The Phantom Crane
1891
Childs Gallery
Boston, Massachussets, US

Three more Beard pictures.

Frederic Edwin Church

born: Hartford Connecticut; 4 May 1826
died: New York, New York; 7 April 1900

Niagra Falls

Eight more Church landscapes.

Albert Bierstadt

born: Solingen, near Düsseldorf Westfalia (now Germany); 7 January 1830
died: New York, United States; 19 February 1902

Emigrants Crossing the Plains
1867
oil/canvas; 170×259 cm
Cowboy Hall of Fame
Oklahoma City, OK, US

More Bierstadt paintings.

Jasper Francis Cropsey

born: Rossville, Staten Island, New York; 18 February 1836
died: Hastings-on-Hudson, New York; 1900

Hudson River School Landscape Painter

Schatacook Mt.
-- Conneticut
1845

Three more Cropsey Landscapes.

Winslow Homer

born: Boston, Mass.; 24 February 1836
died: Prout's Neck, New York; 29 September 1910

The Gulf Stream
1899
Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Fifty more Homer pictures.

Other Works:

The Fox Hunt, 1893, Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia.
Fishing Boats, Key West; 1903, Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Thomas Moran

born: Bolton, Lancashire, England; 12 February 1837
died: Santa Barbara, California; 1926

Chasm of the Colorado 1874 National Museum of American Art Washington DC	Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone 1872 National Museum of American Art Washington DC
Mountain of the Holy Cross [Colorado Rockies] 1875 Gene Audry Western Heritage Museum, Los Angeles	Summit of the Sierras 1874

Thirteen more Moran pictures

On August 26, 1883, the island volcano of Krakatoa in Indonesia, a minor volcanic island with a history of violent volcanic activity, exploded. The eruption was one of the largest natural disasters in recorded history. The explosion was heard more than 3000 miles away. The effects were experienced on a global scale.

A series of large tsunami waves generated by the main explosion, some reaching a height of nearly 40 meters above sea level, killed more than 36,000 people in the coastal towns and villages along the Sunda Strait on Java and Sumatra islands. Tsunami waves were recorded or observed throughout the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the American West Coast, South America, and even as far away as the English Channel.

Fine ash from the eruption were carried by upper level winds as far away as New York City. Volcanic dust blew into the upper atmosphere reducing incoming solar radiation and chilling the eath thus affecting the earth's weather for several years. And 1880s were blessed with some of the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets ever seen.

Paul Frénzeny

born: France?; about 1840
died: London, England; 1902

Little biographical information is available for Paul Frénzeny, most of what we know comes from the Harper's Weekly pictures he created. He probably was in Mexico in his early twenties, before he ended up in New York. He was in the United States by 1868 (28) when his first wood-cut illustrations began to appear in Harper's.

He probably had little formal art training because it is reported that while he was good at sketching, he didn't seem to have been trained in painting or working in other media. All his life he worked in wood-cut illustrations via pencil sketches.

He began to work with Jules Tavernier in 1873 (33) when he began to jointly create pictures with Tavernier for Harper's. That colaboration lasted around three years.

Tavernier tried his luck as a fine artist on the frontier, Frenzeny opted for continuing as an illustrator. For awhile after they argued and broke up Frenzeny stayed around San Franciso, but finally left going down the Pacific coast to Southern California, Mexico, Central America, across Panama, and back up to New York.

He worked several more years in New York and eventually joined the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, ending up in London where he illustrated books and worked for the London Graphic. He died in London in 1902.