Peter tree grass

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Peter Baumgras (born January 4, 1827 in Homburg , † October 18, 1903 in Chicago ) was a German-American painter, lithographer and art teacher.

Life

He was a son of the decorative painter Friedrich Jakob Baumgras (1791-1852) and Katherine Baumgras, born. Knöckel, (1793–1862), and was born in Homburg in Rheinbayern - currently part of the Kingdom of Bavaria . In 1846 he was enrolled at the Royal Art Academy in Düsseldorf in the elementary class, in which, among others, Rudolf Wiegmann taught. In June 1847 he continued studying painting at the Munich Art Academy with the history painter Wilhelm Kaulbach and with Karl Schorn , who led a history painting class from 1847 until his death in 1850. He finished his studies in June 1852 - already with the intention of going to America. He initially worked as a lithographer and miniaturist and was an "extraordinary member" of the Munich Art Association from 1849 until his departure in 1852.

In 1853 he emigrated - like his brother Wilhelm († 1885), who was born in Waldmohr in 1829 - to the USA. He first lived in Syracuse, New York, but after his marriage in 1856 he moved to Washington, DC with his pupil, the flower painter Mary Brainerd Thomson (1840–1928), where he created numerous portraits, but also still lifes with flowers and fruits.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), tree grass served as a medical draftsman for the Army of the Northern States ("Army of the Potomac") in a hospital in or near Washington. His watercolors, drawings and subsequent lithographs and prints showing severe war injuries and their treatment appeared - as well as works by his colleagues Hermann Faber (1832–1913), A. Pohlers, Edward Stauch and William Schultze - in medical and surgical documentation of the Civil War (The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion).

Back in Washington, he was an art teacher at Gallaudet College for the Deaf from 1864 to 1872 . He became a member of the "Literary Society of Washington" and the "Society of Washington Artists" and exhibited in 1859 at the "Washington Art Association". In 1877 he was also a co-founder of the Washington Art Club. The sculptor Franklin Simmons (1839–1913) modeled the portrait medallion of General Ulysses S. Grant in his Washington studio . Baumgras carried out a portrait of the general, as well as that of President Abraham Lincoln († 1868), with whom, according to tradition, he was on friendly terms. The portrait received a lot of attention. In the early 1870s, he made a trip to California, which initially took him to Panama by sea. Here he met the zoologist Alexander Agassiz , for whom he then made scientific drawings in California. In addition to still lifes of flowers and fruits, California also produced large-format landscape paintings such as “Bighorn Sheep” (1875) and “Yosemite Valley” (1879). Portrait commissions for which he is said to have gone to Oregon or Vancouver , Canada are not documented . In the late 1870s, tree grass first returned to Washington and then settled in Chicago. He taught at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis ; from 1877 to 1878 he was professor of art at the University of Illinois and showed his still life at the Art Institute . His circle of friends and acquaintances included the portrait painter George Healy (1813-1894), the landscape painters George Inness (1825-1894) and Albert Bierstadt and the portrait and landscape painter William Merritt Chase .

Treegrass died of a stroke at his apartment at 25 Thirty-Fifth Street in Chicago's Presbyterian Hospital and was buried in Oakwood Cemetary in Syracuse, NY . He left his wife, Mary, and three children.

Exhibitions:

  • 1859-1860 Washington Art Association
  • 1868 National Academy of Design
  • 1872, 1877 San Francisco
  • 1897, 1898, 1900 Art Institute of Chicago
  • 1898 Boston Art Club: "Beauties from the Ocean"
  • 1983 Washington DC, National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Works (selection)

Works are in the collections of Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, George Washington University, Washington, DC, Lincoln Museum at Ford's Theater, Washington, DC, New Haven Colony Historical Society, CT, and New York Historical Society, New York, NY .

  • "Portrait of a Gentleman", 1858; Oil on canvas, 5.1 x 3.8 cm (?): Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
  • "Portrait of John Dooley" and * "Portrait of Sarah Dooley with fur stole and child", Richmond, Virginia 1859: Maymond Mansion, Richmond Va (Mary Lynn Bayliss The Dooleys of Richmond. An Irish Immigrant Family in the Old and the New South. University of Virginia Press, Charlotteville and London 2017; with images)
  • "Portrait of General George Rogers Clark", Virginia (1752-1818), 1859/60; Order of the Secretary of War; Payment June 1860: $ 3500 (Executive documents printed by order of the House of Representatives during the second session of the thirty-sixth congress 1860/61, Volume 9, p. 26 (online))
  • "Portrait of Adeline Wooster Owen" († 1867), 1866; Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm); inscribed ul: “ Peter Baumgras / Dec. 1866 “: New York Historical Society Collection, New York, NY. ( https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibit/adeline-wooster-owen )
  • "Portrait of General James R. Garfield" and * "Portrait of Lucretia Rudolph Garfield", c. 1870 James A. Garfield National Historic Site, Mentor, Ohio
  • "Portrait of Mary Baumgras" (two versions)
  • “Portrait of the son Erwin at the age of 5”, 1866; Oil on panel, 24 × 19 in (61 × 48.3 cm), and * "Portrait of the daughter Irene as a child"
  • "Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)", 1865; Oil on canvas, 24 ½ × 19 ½ in. (Approx. 62 × 50 cm): Charles Woodberry McLellan Lincoln Collection, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
  • "Portrait of General John Sedgwick (1813–1864)" (Lincoln Museum)
  • "Still Life with Cauliflower and Strawberries," 1873; Oil on canvas, 13 × 16 in. (Approx. 33 × 40.5 cm): Oakland Museum of California

A painting from the artist's time in San Francisco (1870s) is called "The Miner's Dream" (Waldo Seldon Pratt: A forgotten American portrait-painter: Peter Baumgras, 1827–1903. A sketch with illustrations, private print 1937.)

Art trade:

  • “Saint Barbara”, 1853; Oil on canvas, 100 × 60 cm
  • "Portrait of a young child, Lillee and James Corden daughter", 1869; Oil on cardboard, 30 × 25 cm
  • “A gentleman wearing a black jacket, waistcoat and stock and white collar with brown hair”, watercolor on ivory, visible 2 1/8 × 1 in. (5.4 × 2.5 cm), inscribed on the reverse “Peter Baumgras, Nov . 1858, Washington " ( https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/peter-baumgras-a-gentleman-wearing-a-1561423-details.aspx ?)
  • "Portrait of the Boston Abolitionist Wendell Phillips"; Oil on copper sheet, 4.87 × 4.87 in. (12.4 × 12.4 cm)
  • "On the wings of a butterfly", 1870; Oil on panel, 25.4 × 14.3 cm (10 × 5.6 in.)
  • “Church in Panama” (also: “Church in Latin America”), 1873; Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 127 cm (30 × 50 in.)
  • "View in the Yosemite Valley, California - the Royal Arches," 1874; Oil on canvas, 30.5 × 40.6 cm. (12 × 16 in.)
  • "Western landscape", 1897; Oil on canvas, 18 × 24 in. (45.7 × 61 cm)

Archival material

  • Archival material Peter Baumgras: Detroit Institute of Arts Research Library & Archives.
  • Medical and surgical documentation of wounds and their treatment, 7 watercolors, 1 pencil drawing, 1863 (1) and 1864: National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Frederick, MD

literature

  • Waldo Seldon Pratt: A forgotten American portrait-painter: Peter Baumgras, 1827–1903. A sketch with illustrations, private print 1937.
  • Emanuel Bénézit (Ed.): Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays. 1956-62. Volume I, p. 18.
  • George C. Groce, David H. Wallace: New-York Historical Society's dictionary of artists in America, 1564-1860. Yale University Press, New Haven 1957.
  • Andrew Cosentino: The Capitol Image. Painters In Washington 1800–1915. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC 1983, p. 252.
  • William H. Gerdts: Art across America. Two Centuries of Regional Painting. Volume 1, 1990, pp. 348-349; Plate 1.344.
  • Art Life In Washington. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC, Volume 24. Historical Society of Washington, DC, Washington, DC 1992, p. 174.
  • Peter Falk: Who was who in American Art. Sound View Press, Madison (CT) 1999.
  • Edan Hughes: Artists in California 1786-1940. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento 2002.
  • Kirsten M. Jensen: The American Salon. The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, 1873-1890. City University of New York, New York 2007, p. 442.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The data on the painter's life and work often differ from one another in the sources and are often imprecise and / or incorrect, including the information allegedly received from the Baumgras children
  2. ↑ Not in Hessian (Bad) Homburg : The entry of the place of origin in the register of the Munich Art Academy is clear; Here the place of residence is also given as " Waldmohr ", which is only a short distance north of Homburg
  3. ^ Not Friedrich August von Kaulbach; he only became a teacher at the academy in 1883. Wilhelm (from 1866 “von”) Kaulbach led the “technical painting class” and in 1849 became director of the Munich Art Academy
  4. ↑ see matriculation entry
  5. ^ Report on the existence and work of the Munich Art Association during 1849, p. 36; dto. 1850, p. 38.
  6. ↑ this probably earlier; see. History of the Germans in Syracuse and Onondaga Counties. In addition to short biographies of civil servants and outstanding citizens. Illustrated manual of interesting contents. Published by the "Syracuse Union." 1897. Printed by JP Pinzer, 466 N. Salina Street, Syracuse, NY ( https://sites.rootsweb.com/~mstone/book.html )
  7. ↑ hellenicaworld.com
  8. ^ Tenth Annual Report of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb for the year ending June 30, 1867. College Faculty. Peter tree grass. Instructor in Art
  9. ↑ This is supported by his portrait of a bearded gentleman, oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in. (Approx. 76 × 63 cm), inscribed on the reverse. “Ralph Jacobs. Oregon City, Oregon ", identified as the German-born founder of the Oregon City Woolen Mills ( https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/signed-baumgras-lr-oil-canvas-474496156 )
  10. ↑ cf. Waldo Seldon Pratt: A forgotten American portrait-painter: Peter Baumgras, 1827–1903. A sketch with illustrations, Privatdruck 1937: Somewhere in his Californian period Baumgras spent perhaps a year at Vancouver, of which no records are available ( https://archive.org/stream/artisxxxxx00linc/artisxxxxx00linc_djvu.txt )
  11. ↑ from September 2003: Rush University Medical Center
  12. ↑ The year of death "1904" incorrectly on the tombstone
  13. ↑ Painter Tree Grass is Dead. Drawer of Portraits Passes Away at Age of 76., in: The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois), October 18, 1903, p. 2.
  14. ^ Boston Art Club. Fifty-seventh exhibition of oil paintings and sculpture. Mills Press of Knight & Co., Boston 1898 (Catalog No. 90)
  15. ↑ archive.org ›bostonartclubfin1898unse_djvu
  16. ↑ Figure: https://garfieldnps.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/
  17. ↑ twitter.com
  18. ^ Civilwarmed.org
  19. ↑ rochester.edu
personal data
SURNAME Tree grass, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American painter, lithographer and art professor
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Homburg
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1903
Place of death Chicago