Richard Lorenz (1858 to 1915)
A native of Voigstaedt, Weimar, Germany, Richard Lorenz is best known for his portrayals of settlers and their ensuing conflicts with the Plains Indian. As a young man, he studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in Weiman, and had as an instructor Heinrich Albert Brendel, a well-known painter of wildlife.
Lorenz came to the United States in 1886 and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he joined a group of painters known for extremely large mural-size paintings of historic subjects. The next several years found him traveling throughout the West, sketching the varied landscape and its people. In 1890, he returned to Milwaukee and began to teach at the School of Art where Frank Tenney Johnson was perhaps his most famous pupil. At the same time, he began to paint from the many sketches he had made during his travels, especially scenes of the Great Plains. These paintings became his trademark and were widely exhibited and collected.
Today, he is considered one of the foremost painters of western genre, and his paintings, rarely seen on the market, are prized by both private collectors and museums.
Information courtesy of Coeur D’Alene Art Auction – July 22, 2006