Henry Mosler | |
|---|---|
 Henry Mosler, 1907,National Portrait Gallery | |
| Born | (1841-06-06)June 6, 1841 |
| Died | April 21, 1920(1920-04-21) (aged 78) |
| Known for | Painting, drawing |
Henry Mosler (June 6, 1841 – April 21, 1920) was a German-born painter who documented American life, includingcolonial themes,Civil War illustrations, and portraits of men and women of society.[1]
He was born in Tropplowitz,Silesia,Prussia (present-dayOpawica, Poland), and moved with his family to New York in 1849, when he was 8 years old. His father, Gustavus Mosler, had worked as alithographer in Europe, but in New York he found work as a cigar maker andtobacconist. In 1851, the family relocated toCincinnati, Ohio, the site of a substantial German-Jewish community. Henry was apprenticed to a wood engraver, Horace C. Grosvenor, while still in his early teens, and also was taught the basics of painting by an amateur landscape painter, George Kerr.[2]
After studying drawing by himself, Mosler became a draughtsman for a comic paper, theOmnibus (Cincinnati), in 1855. From 1859 to 1861 he studied underJames Henry Beard, and in 1862–63, during theAmerican Civil War, served as an art correspondent ofHarper's Weekly.[3] As with most Jews in the North, Mosler was a strong Union supporter, andHarper's Weekly served as an important voice for the Union forces. He was an aide-de-camp with theArmy of the Ohio from 1861 to 1863, and published 34 drawings inHarper's, 18 of them depicting the Kentucky and Ohio Campaign in 1862.[4] He also did portraits of several generals.[5]
In 1863 Mosler went toDüsseldorf, where for almost three years he was at theRoyal Academy, and studied underHeinrich Mücke andAlbert Kindler; he subsequently went toParis, where he studied for six months underErnest Hébert.[3][5] He returned to Cincinnati in 1866, where received numerous portrait commissions.[2] He also created the first painting for which he received a significant degree of recognition,The Lost Cause, which he exhibited at theNational Academy of Design in 1868.[2] This was soon followed by the groupBetsy Ross Making the First American Flag.[6]
In 1874, Mosler returned to France, having married Sara Cahn of Cincinnati in 1869.[2] He studied for three years underCarl Theodor von Piloty inMunich, where he won a medal at theRoyal Academy.[5] In 1877, he moved to France. While living in Brittany, he paintedThe Quadroon Girl andEarly Cares, both of which were accepted by the Salon of 1879.[6] HisLe Retour, from the Paris Salon of 1879, was the first American painting ever bought for theLuxembourg Palace. He received a silver medal at the Salons in Paris 1889, and gold medals at Paris, 1888, and Vienna, 1893.[3]
In 1894 he moved his family to New York, opening a studio in Carnegie Hall. He served as an associate in the National Academy of Design, and continued painting well into the 20th century.[2] He died of heart failure at the age of 78.[6]
His son,Gustave Henry Mosler, was also an artist. His other son, Arthur Rembrandt Mosler, was an engineer who married the famous soprano and voice teacherEstelle Liebling.[7][8] His granddaughter,Audrey Skirball-Kenis (née Marx), was a philanthropist in Los Angeles and founder of theSkirball Cultural Center. Hisgreat-grandson, John F. McCrindle, was an art collector and patron of artists and writers, founding the Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation to award grants to arts, music and social justice organizations.[9][10] His students included Isabelle Davis Seymour, a listed miniature portrait artist of Evanston Illinois, and Wilder M. Darling, an artist and teacher based inToledo.[11][12]
Examples of his work are in currently in the collections of theAllentown Art Museum, theWichita Art Museum, theSmithsonian American Art Museum, theHuntington Library, theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, the Sydney Art Museum, NSW, theCincinnati Art Museum, theRichmond Art Museum, the art museums ofSpringfield, Massachusetts, and various museums in New York.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mosler, Henry".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 898–899.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
