Karl Bodmer's Studio Art: The Newberry Library Bodmer Collection [Paperback]

W. Raymond Wood (Author), Joseph C. Porter (Author), David Hunt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2007

To document the natural history and inhabitants of the American West, Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied selected the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer to accompany him on his 1833-34 expedition up the Missouri River. Beginning in St. Louis, they journeyed as far as inland waterways could take them, through present-day Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and into Montana. During the expedition, twenty-three-year-old Bodmer sketched and painted a wealth of landscapes and Native American portraits that would be immortalized as aquatints and woodcuts in Maximilian's published journals and accompanying atlas. Now considered the most vivid and instructive depiction of the nineteenth-century American West and its people prior to the decimation of many Plains tribes by disease, Bodmer's artwork continues to intrigue historians, scholars, and collectors.

This remarkable volume collects Bodmer's studio art: a series of compositions he created in his Paris studio. These images, thirteen of them previously unpublished, are augmentations of the artist's expeditionary sketches and watercolors rendered in the complicated process of completing the aquatints. The publication of the Newberry Library Bodmer Collection, together with five sketches from the Baltimore Museum of Art, brings together all of Bodmer's extant works not previously collected in book form. Karl Bodmer's Studio Art also includes sketches that Bodmer did not use for later paintings or engravings.

The book is framed by W. Raymond Wood's introduction and annotations of the artwork, Joseph C. Porter's examination of the expedition's scientific and intellectual significance, and David C. Hunt's historical summary of the publication of Bodmer's North American work. An exquisite collaboration, Karl Bodmer's Studio Art promotes a deeper appreciation of the premier documentary artist of the western American frontier, as well as his methods, processes, and unmitigated skill.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book presents important original work on Bodmer's art and the Native peoples he depicted." Journal of the West "Karl Bodmer's stunning watercolors of his 1833-34 expedition up the Missouri River have been known for decades, but Karl Bodmer's Studio Art goes beyond previous publications to explore the intellectual context of the expedition as well as the prints that accompanied Prince Maximilian's 1839 book. It is a major contribution to our knowledge of the expedition because it also documents for the first time the Newberry Library's Bodmer studio collection." Ron Tyler, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Texas State Historical Association

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252074610
• ISBN-13: 978-0252074615
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,640,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captured the imaginations of the western world then and now, January 10, 2003

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Karl Bodmer's Studio Art: THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY BODMER COLLECTION (Hardcover)

Collaboratively written by W. Raymond Wood (Professor of Anthropology, University of Missouri-Columbia), Joseph C. Porter (Chief Curator, North Carolina Museum of History), and David C. Hunt (Director, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas), and enhanced with numerous black-and-white illustrations and studio art reproductions, Karl Bodmer's Studio Art is a truly captivating collection of images and an informative, scholarly study of the works of Karl Bodmer, a Swiss artist whom Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied selected for an 1833-34 expedition up the Missouri River. Bodmer sketched and painted landscapes and Native American portraits which uniquely captured the imaginations of the western world then and now. Enthusiastically recommended for academic and community library Art History and American History reference collections, Karl Bodmer's Studio Art focuses more on the story of Bodmer's journey than the art itself, yet both the text and the illustrations have a timeless appeal.