Rudolf Friedrich Kurz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Self-Portrait
Potawatomi Indians on the Missouri (St. Joseph)

Rudolf Friedrich Kurz , mostly Friedrich Kurz (born January 8, 1818 in Bern ; † October 16, 1871 there ), was a Swiss painter and illustrator who depicted the life of the Indians during his stay in the United States from 1846 to 1852 .

biography

Rudolf Friedrich Kurz received his first drawing lessons in high school with Nikolaus Senn. From 1834 he studied painting with Joseph Simon Volmar in Bern. From 1838 to 1842 he trained in various Parisian artist studios. He went on study trips through France . In Paris he met the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and the painter Karl Bodmer . He returned to Bern in 1842 and became a drawing teacher at the Fellenberg Institute in Hofwil .

In the fall of 1846, Kurz emigrated to the United States. In 1847 he made a trip from New Orleans to St. Louis . From 1848 to 1850 he worked in Saint Joseph (Missouri) as a tavern and grocer. He married Witthae, daughter of Kirutsche, a leading figure in the Iowa Indians . The marriage did not last long - Witthae ran away after two weeks looking for her people. Briefly worked as an employee of the American Fur Company . During the summer a cholera epidemic broke out among the Indians who blamed the artist for this. On August 18, 1851, Kurz had to flee to Fort Union in North Dakota . The manager of Fort Union allowed him to occupy himself with painting and sketching the views of the place. Kurz also earned his living as a musician. In 1852 he sold a large part of his collection of Indian objects in New York in order to be able to finance the journey home.

He returned to Bern on September 25, 1852. From 1856 until his death he was a drawing teacher at the canton school there. He was a member of the Berner Künstlergesellschaft and in 1870 one of the co-founders and first director of the Bernese Art School .

In the eight years or so that he spent in the United States, he dealt with the representation of the life of the Indian tribes as well as the flora and fauna there. Kurz has been fascinated by the novels of James Fenimore Cooper on the life of the Indians since his youth . From America he brought numerous travel diaries and sketch albums with him. An Indian gallery was to emerge from this, but it never came into being. Kurz made numerous sketches and paintings and wrote texts as well as a dictionary of Indian dialects.

Six of his illustrations appeared in the magazine Die Gartenlaube in 1862 as illustrations of the reports by Balduin Möllhausen . In 1896 the diary excerpts, revised by his nephew Emil Kurz , appeared. In 1916, parts of the diary with drawings appeared in the Swiss Youth Books series . His work found recognition as a rich source of information for historical and ethnographic research in the 20th century, first in the USA, before it achieved a certain appreciation in Switzerland.

Fonts

  • From the diary of the painter Friedrich Kurz about his stay with the Missouri Indians, 1848–1852 . Edited and communicated by the nephew of the painter Emil Kurz. Bern 1896 ( digitized version ).
    • Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz. An account of his experiences among fur traders and American Indians on the Mississippi and the upper Missouri rivers during the years 1846 to 1852. Translated by Myrtis Jarrell, edited by J. N. B. Hewitt. Washington 1937 ( digitized ).
    • On the Upper Missouri. The journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz, 1851-1852. Edited and Abridged by Carla Kelly. Introduction by Scott Eckberg. University of Oklahoma Press Norman, Oklahoma 2005, ISBN 0-8061-3655-3 .

literature

Individual proof

  1. ^ Emil Kurz: Sketches and pictures by the painter Friedrich Kurz. In: Schweizer Illustrierte , Vol. 4, 1900, pp. 284–288.


Web links

Commons : Rudolf Friedrich Kurz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME In short, Rudolf Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES In short, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss illustrator and painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1871
Place of death Bern