Karl Ferdinand Wimar (also known as Charles Wimar and Carl Wimar; 20 February 1828 – 28 November 1862), was a German-American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

who concentrated on Native Americans in the West and the great herds of buffalo. Carl Wimar Abduction of Boones Daughter detail Amon Carter Museum

Carl Wimar Abduction of Boones Daughter detail Amon Carter Museum

He is known for an early painting of a colonial incident: his ''The Abduction of Boone's Daughter by the Indians'' (1855–56), a depiction of the 1776 capture near

Boonesborough, Kentucky Boonesborough or Boonesboro is an unincorporated community in Madison County, Kentucky, United States. Founded by famed frontiersman Daniel Boone in 1775 as one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains, Boonesb ...

of Jemima Boone and two other girls by a Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party.

Early life and education

Born in

Siegburg Siegburg (; i.e. ''fort on the Sieg (river), Sieg river''; Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Sieburch'') is a city in the district of Rhein-Sieg-Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the banks of the rivers Sieg (river), Sieg ...

, Wimar immigrated to the United States at the age of 15 with his family. They settled in

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

. In 1846, he began studying painting with Leon Pomarede. Together they traveled up the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. In 1852, he went to the

Düsseldorf Academy Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

to study with

Emanuel Leutze Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816July 18, 1868) was a German-born American history painter, best known for his 1851 painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography Leutze w ...

. He is associated with the

Düsseldorf school of painting Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

Career

Wimar returned to St. Louis in 1856. About this time, he painted a notable incident from the colonial era, ''The Abduction of Boone's Daughter by the Indians'' (1855–1856). It was one of his first works to achieve notice in the United States. A recent exhibit at the

Amon Carter Museum The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (also known as the Carter) is located in Fort Worth, Texas, in the city's cultural district. The museum's permanent collection features paintings, photography, sculpture, and works on paper by leading arti ...

described the painting as showing five Indians and Jemima in a canoe, each wondering when rescuers would come for her. Wimar primarily painted the themes of Indian life on the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

, showing the Native American hunts of buffalo and other activities related to their nomadic lives. He also painted scenes of the emigrant wagon trains that carried pioneer settlers across the western expanses. He made two long trips in 1858 and 1859 up the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

, and was inspired by his experiences and observations of Native American life. He also traveled up the Mississippi. Among Wimar's best-known works are

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

s painted in 1861 in the Rotunda of the St. Louis Court House. The building is now part of the

Gateway Arch National Park Gateway Arch National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in St. Louis, Missouri, near the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In its initial form as a List of nationa ...

Works

File:Karl Ferdinand Wimar - The Captive Charger.jpg, ''The Captive Charger'', Charles Ferdinand Wimar, 1854 File:Karl Ferdinand Wimar - The lost trail.jpg, ''The Lost Trail'', Charles Ferdinand Wimar, c. 1856. File:"Indians on the Prairie", Charles Wimar, 1860.jpg, "Indians on the Prairie", Charles Ferdinand Wimar, 1860 File:Charles Ferdinand Wimar - The Attack on an Emigrant Train - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Attack on an Emigrant Train'', at the

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) is one of the largest university art museums in the United States, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with . Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alu ...

References

External links

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Biography and Works: Karl Ferdinand Wimar
Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wimar, Karl 1828 births 1862 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters Painters from St. Louis 19th-century German painters 19th-century American male artists German male painters Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni Emigrants from the German Confederation to the United States People from Siegburg Düsseldorf school of painting