Frederick Girsch

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Frederick Girsch (actually Friedrich Girsch , born March 31, 1821 in Büdingen , Grand Duchy of Hesse , † December 18, 1895 in Mount Vernon , New York State ) was a German-American etcher , portrait painter , steel and banknote engraver . He made the printing plates for numerous American dollar bills.

Life

Frederick Girsch: The Declaration of Independence after a painting by John Trumbull

Girsch studied at the art academy in Darmstadt and was a painting student of Karl Ludwig Seeger . He then worked as a copper and steel engraver, mainly taking on portraits. On the steel engraving The German National Assembly in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt a / M. , after a drawing by Johann Heinrich Hasselhorst , he worked as an engraver. From this time there is also known a depiction by Martin Luther, which he based on a model by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Ä. manufactured. In the course of the German Revolution of 1848/1849 he moved to Paris and emigrated to the United States in 1849, where he settled in New York.

Thanks to his great artistic and manual skills, he received numerous commissions. From 1855 he worked for the printing works Danforth and Wright & Co. For the American Bank Note Company he engraved numerous vignettes , some of which were used in the printing of official banknotes. His steel engraving DeSoto Discovering the Mississippi was used for the $ 500 Federal Reserve note. The vignettes of the 5 dollar note, the 10 dollar note ( The Declaration of Independence based on a painting by John Trumbull ) are also from Girsch. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns free artistic works ( Golden Thoughts , 1885; Girl by the Sea , 1883). The copperplate The Heroes of the Revolution was created for the New York Criminal Zeitung in 1860 .

Alongside Christian Gobrecht , Charles Frederick , Charles Mielatz (1864-1919) and Stephen Alonzo Schoff , Girsch was one of the most important German-born steel engravers and engravers of his time in the USA . Since his son Charles W. Girsch donated 35 vignettes of his father's American banknotes to the United States National Museum.

literature

  • Thieme-Becker, Vol. XIV, (1921), p. 193
  • Rudolf Vierhaus: German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE) (Einstein - Görner), Walter de Gruyter, Munich, 2006, ISBN 978-3-11094655-0 , p. 836
  • Katharina Bott: German artists in America, 1813–1913: American artists in Germany, 1813–1913 , publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar, 1996 ISBN 978-3-93212403-7 , p. 76

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Internet site of the collection of the University Library Frankfurt am Main
  2. ^ Website of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel
  3. ^ Kathleen Loock: Cold Hard Cash: Paper Money and National Identity website http://www.academia.edu
  4. ↑ Metmuseum: Golden Thoughts , 1885
  5. ↑ Metmuseum: Girl by the Sea
  6. ↑ Illustration of the motif The Heroes of the Revolution
  7. ↑ The Heroes of the Revolution , copper engraving approx. 47 × 63 cm on laid paper 55 × 71 cm, typographically titled and inscribed below the image; New York Criminal Newspaper's eighth volume bonus; H. Peters New York 1860
personal data
SURNAME Girsch, Frederick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Girsch, Friedrich (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American eraser, portrait painter, steel and banknote engraver
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Büdingen , Grand Duchy of Hesse
DATE OF DEATH December 18, 1895
Place of death Mount Vernon , New York State