24 Facts About Karl Bodmer

Johann Carl Bodmer was a Swiss-French printmaker, etcher, lithographer, zinc engraver, draughtsman, painter, illustrator, and hunter.

Karl Bodmer was well known in Germany for his watercolours, drawings, and aquatints of cities and landscapes of the Rhine, Mosel, and Lahn rivers.

Karl Bodmer created many oil paintings with animal and landscape motifs, wood engravings, drawings, and book illustrations.

Karl Bodmer is best known in the United States as a painter who captured the American frontier of the 19th century.

Karl Bodmer painted extremely accurate works of its inhabitants and landscape.

Karl Bodmer accompanied the German explorer Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied from 1832 through 1834 on his Missouri River expedition.

Karl Bodmer was hired as an artist by Maximilian in order to accompany his expedition and record images of cities, rivers, towns, and peoples they saw along the way, including the many tribes of Native Americans along the Missouri River and in that region.

Karl Bodmer had 81 aquatints made from his work to illustrate Prince Maximilian's book, Maximilian Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, published in 1839 in German and in English in 1843.

Johann Carl Karl Bodmer was born on 11 February 1809 in Zurich, Switzerland.

Karl Bodmer decided to embark on another such venture, this time to North America and especially the American West.

Karl Bodmer hired Bodmer to accompany his expedition and make a visual record of the places and peoples encountered, through painting, drawings, etc.

Karl Bodmer makes no demands, and in diligence he is never lacking.

Karl Bodmer featured the work and personalities of Thomas Say and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, two leading American naturalists.

Karl Bodmer traveled down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, spending a week with Joseph Barrabino.

Karl Bodmer had extensively documented the journey with visual images, while Prince Max took copious notes for the book he intended to write.

Karl Bodmer then moved to Barbizon, France, and later became a French citizen.

Karl Bodmer became a member of the Barbizon School, a group of painters who specialized in landscapes and works featuring animals.

Karl Bodmer worked in a variety of genres, including painting, etching, wood engraving, and illustration.

Karl Bodmer made an engraving of his painting, and reproductions were popular in the 1860s.

Karl Bodmer died in Paris, shortly after receiving his French citizenship.

Karl Bodmer is buried in Chailly-en-Biere, at the entrance of the Fontainebleau forest.

Karl Bodmer captured a challenging and dramatic landscape that was still unfamiliar to audiences in the eastern United States and Europe.

Karl Bodmer's portraits were the first accurate portrayal of western Indians in their homelands, and they are considered remarkable for their careful detail and sensitivity to the personalities of his sitters.

Karl Bodmer's work is recognised as among the most accurate painted images ever made of Native Americans, their culture and artifacts, and of the scenery of the pristine "Old West".