Existing comment:
Bierstadt, Albert
American, 1830 - 1902
Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Prussia, on January 7, 1830, but he spent his early years in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where his parents settled two years after his birth. Henry Bierstadt, the artist's father, found work as a cooper in the capital of America's whaling industry.
Primarily self-taught, Albert Bierstadt began his professional career in 1850 when he advertised his services as a drawing instructor. Three years later he departed for Europe, hoping Johann Peter Hasenclever (1810-1853), a distant relative and prominent member of the Dusseldorf school of artists, would help him obtain formal instruction. Hasenclever died suddenly, however, shortly before Bierstadt's arrival. When Emanuel Leutze (1816-1868) and Worthington Whittredge (1820-1910) came to his aid Bierstadt found, unexpectedly, American rather than German mentors. |