William Louis Sonntag (American, 1822 to 1900)
William Louis Sonntag Sr. was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was known for his landscape paintings. He first gained his reputation in Cincinnati, where he was active from 1841-53 before departing for Europe along with African American painter Robert Scott Duncanson. While in the Queen City, many of his sketching trips took him to the rural areas of Kentucky and western Virginia, and the resulting canvases were executed and marketed in Cincinnati.
Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, June 2008.
Sonntag studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy in the early 1840s. He remained in Cincinnati during most of the 1850s, painting the Ohio landscape in a detailed style, influenced by Thomas Cole. He traveled to Europe in 1853, and again later that decade. Upon returning to the United States in 1861, he established a studio in New York City, and began exhibiting at the National Academy, and did so annually for almost 40 years.
Information courtesy of Treadway Toomey Auctions, December 1999.