Charles Schreyvogel
Born in New York in 1861, Charles Schreyvogel (1861 to 1912) was the second son of Paul and Theresa Schreyvogel, two German immigrants whose families moved to the United States to escape revolutionary troubles in Europe. His interest in art became apparent as a young child. Although discouraged by his father, a shopkeeper, he pursued these interests by working as an apprentice to a die-sinker and then in a lithography shop. The family moved to Hoboken, New Jersey when Charles was still young, and it was there, later in life, that he would produce his major works.
In 1886, Schreyvogel traveled to Europe to study at the Munich Art Academy under Karl von Marr and Frank Kirchbach. Upon his return in 1890, he began to take great interest in subjects of the American Frontier. By 1893, he had saved enough money to make his first trip to the Ute Reservation in Colorado.
In his first foray into the American West, Schreyvogel became enamored with the Great Plains Indians and their confrontations with the U.S. military. He diligently recorded minute details from the stories of officers and cavalrymen, and he spent time sketching Indians and Calvary troopers. He dedicated similar attention to accurate depictions of horses, clothing and weaponry. He returned to Hoboken with the intent of becoming a painter-historian.
Schreyvogel’s method was unique. Through the winter and summer, he preferred to paint on his roof in order to catch a light that was most reminiscent of his experience in the West. When on the roof, either in Hoboken or at his farm, he relied upon his memory, as well as the sketches he made, along with artifacts he brought back and interviews he recorded while on his trips west. He often used locals for modeling, including a handyman named Grant Bloodgod, whom he believed resembled a Plains trooper. His likeness can be seen in many of Schreyvogel’s large canvases.
In the 1890′s, Schreyvogel painted many Western American scenes but received little acclaim other than from private, local patrons. During these difficult times, Charles, and his new wife, Louise, lived in dire poverty, but the artist refused to abandon his Western subject matter. Schreyvogel’s big break came when his painting, My Bunkie, won the Clark Award for best American figure composition in 1899. The painting appeared in several newspapers and magazines, including Harper’s Weekly. This success set the tone for his most productive years. From 1900 to his death in 1912, Schreyvogel achieved great renown as a painter of the American West and of frontier life.
Schreyvogel also received attention through his public controversy with his contemporary artist Frederic Remington. Remington widely criticized the historical accuracy of Schreyvogel’s paintings, and competition between the two caused a national stir. Schreyvogel, however, stayed out of the fray and continued to admire Remington’s work.
From 1905 to the end of his life, Schreyvogel lived and worked on a farm in upper New York State. He continued to paint in the same style, depicting dramatic scenes of Plains warfare and skirmishes between Army troopers and Indians. His realistic scenes had made him famous, and his works were in high demand for both exhibitions and publications.
Reference note courtesy of Cowan Auctions, June 2006..
At the time of his unexpected death from blood poisoning in 1912, Charles Schreyvogel was considered one of the most popular artists of the Old West, revered for his nostalgic images of a disappearing frontier. His fame arrived late in life, when his painting My Bunkie won first prize at the 1900 National Academy of Design exhibition, yet he had been training since his youth as an artist.
Born in 1861 to German immigrants settled in New York City, Schreyvogel apprenticed during the 1870s to a gold engraver and a lithographer before enrolling in the Newark Art League. With the financial assistance of his brothers, he traveled abroad and studied from 1886-1890 at the Munich Royal Academy, there developing an interest in realism and genre scenes.
The watershed moment in Schreyvogel’s career occurred back home in 1893 when he attended Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and sketched for the first time the stuff of his childhood dreams: cowboys and Indians. So entranced was he with these new subjects that soon afterwards he visited the Ute Reservation in Colorado — an opportunity to photograph and paint local legends and begin collecting western artifacts as props for compositions. Schreyvogel’s insistence on thorough preliminary research prompted future trips to the Dakotas, but also limited his production, ultimately fewer than 100 paintings. Ironically, chief rival Frederic Remington in 1903 challenged the historical accuracy of his Custer’s Demand; Schreyvogel, however, supported by notables including Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of Colonel Custer, weathered such criticism to become “the greatest” in his “line of work” (John A. Sleicher, editor of Leslie’s Weekly).
Information courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries, January 2009.