Carl Wimar

[Dietmar]

I´ve been interested for some time now in the works of artist Carl Wimar (aka Charles aka Carl Ferdinand Wimar), born in Siegburg, Germany. The best book you can get about him up to date is “Carl Wimar: Chronicler of the Missouri River" by Joseph D. Ketner, Angela L. Miller and Rick Stewart.

Wimar created some famous paintings, but of course for us here the most interesting pictures are his sketches of Indian leaders he took when he visited the Missouri River in the 1850s.

It would be great to collect some more of the portraits he sketched or painted.


Let´s start with two short biographies:

Carl Wimar


Carl Wimar was born in Germany. At the age of 15 he moved to St. Louis where he made friends with the Indians who traded furs there. Through these friendships Wimar decided to devote his life to painting and sketching the American Indian. He became a pupil of Leon de Pomarede, a St. Louis fresco painter. From 1852 to 1856, he studied art at the Academy in Dusseldorf. His goal was to learn to document the American Indian in pictures as Audubon had American wildlife. Since few Indians remained in St. Louis when he returned from Dusseldorf, Wimar made trips West to sketch and photograph them. The information he collected on these trips became source material for his later paintings. Wimar had a passionate interest in buffaloes. He sketched and painted them roaming free and being hunted by the Indians. His canvas, "The Buffalo Hunt," completed for the opening of the Western Academy of Art in St. Louis in 1860, was a great success and today is considered a masterpiece. In 1861, Henry Blow, president of the Western Academy of Art, commissioned a painting of the same subject for his home. This "Single Buffalo" pastel, also of 1861, may have been a preliminary study for another painting owned by Blow, "Indians Hunting Buffalo." Wimar was at the peak of his career in 1861 when he was commissioned to paint the dome of the St. Louis courthouse. This project was never realized. Carl Wimar died of consumption in 1862, leaving his few sketchbooks and paintings as documents of American Indian life and the buffalo that soon vanished from America's West.
collections.mohistory.org/search/node/71000

Wimar was born in Siegburg, Germany and began painting in oil at the age of twelve in Cologne. He emigrated to St. Louis, Missouri in 1843 with his mother and stepfather who had opened an inn. Wimar, having previously exhibited proficient artistic skills, became an apprentice to a local house and steamboat painter A. C. Wilgus. Unhappy with his training, the artist joined the studio of Leon Pomarede, a well-known painter who had some formal artistic training. In 1849, Wimar working with Pomarede completed Portrait of the Father of the Rivers, an extremely ambitious panorama of the Mississippi River. In preparation for this project, Pomarede and Wimar produced sketches from numerous steamboat trips up the Missouri River traveling as far as to the Falls of St. Anthony. Pomarede also completed works in oil depicting images of frontier subjects, including Native Americans and buffalo hunts. These themes would later become central to Wimar's paintings. After the completion of the panorama, Wimar set up his own studio in 1849 with fellow artist Edward Bonea, painting mainly portraits and genre subjects.
In 1852 Wimar decided to attend the Dusseldorf Academy in Germany, the leading art school at the time, to study with the famous history painter Emanuel Leutze. At the academy, Wimar produced historical works that focused on the conflict between Native Americans and the pioneers as well as dramatic images from the popular novels of James Fenimore Cooper. After four years of study, Wimar returned to St. Louis where he sought inspiration in the Great Plains and its people instead of relying on history, literature and art for his great works.
Soon after his return from Europe, Wimar in 1858 and 1859 embarked on two trips up the Missouri River travelling as far 2,300 miles up river, experiencing the wild frontier firsthand. From these travels Wimar produced an extraordinary collection of on site drawings and photographs of the landscape and people he observed in and around the environs of the Missouri River. These images were the basis for a body of epic works the artist executed soon after his travels. These paintings, as Rick Stewart states, "enabled [Wimar] to achieve legitimacy with his audience for the larger mythic paintings he created concerning the American West. At the same time, he was conscious of the importance of a timely subject." (R. Stewart, J.D. Ketner and A. L. Miller, Carl Wimar, Chronicler of the Missouri Frontier, New York, 1991, p. 168) The timely subject was the Seminole war chief, Holatamica (Billy Bolek), more commonly known as Billy Bowlegs.
www.fineoldart.com/browse_by_essay.html?essay=486

We already posted his portraits of Bear Ribs in another thread:


Bear Rib by Carl Wimar, around 1858


Bear Rib by Wimar, 1859


These are more sketches found on various art seller´s pages:


unidentified Indian woman, sketch


unidentified Indian, sketch



Little Soldier, Yanktonai & follower



unidentified Indians


study of Indians and horses


…to be continued…

[Dietmar]

Here´s a wonderful sketch by Wimar showing three important Lakota leader:


Bear Ribs (Hunkpapa)
Lone Horn & Iron Horn (Miniconjou)

The original caption of the scan above in the Wimar book by Joe Ketner reads: Carl Wimar: Bear Rib, One Horn, Iron Horn, Pencil on Paper, c. June 7, 1858. Saint Loius Art Museum

[Dietmar]

On page 89 in "Chronicler of the Missouri" it is stated:

"The next page in the sketchbook depicts two more chiefs, Two Bears of the Yanktonais and Iron Nation of the Brulé, two tribes of the upper Sioux that in this period were normally located in the vincinity of Fort Lookout."

I haven´t seen the sketch (it is not in the book), but I wonder if the scan of the two unidentified Indians might be the picture mentioned here. My speculation of course. Does anyone know?

[Dietmar]

In the meantime I´ve found this picture Wimar painted of Two Bears and Iron Nation in one of his sketchbooks.
It now seems unlikely that the above picture, as speculated, also shows both men.

Unfortunately Lower Brule leader Iron Nation is only painted from the back... however, we here have probably the earliest likeness of Yanktonai leader Two Bears:

[grahamew]

Another Wimar - subject unidentified:

[emilylevine]

Great stuff Dietmar and Graham! Thanks.

[Ho choa]

My third great-grandfather Frederick Behman was in the Dakotas at the same time as Carl Wimar he was also German but besides his watercolor painting he did of Ft, Chouteau 1954 I don't know anything about him

[billy]

Dec 2, 2013 14:05:27 GMT -5 Dietmar said:

In the meantime I´ve found this picture Wimar painted of Two Bears and Iron Nation in one of his sketchbooks.
It now seems unlikely that the above picture, as speculated, also shows both men.

Unfortunately Lower Brule leader Iron Nation is only painted from the back... however, we here have probably the earliest likeness of Yanktonai leader Two Bears:

Attachments:

[billy]

Sorry, still learning to post. Thank you for posting some of Wimar's sketches Dietmar. I saw two of his sketchbooks in the Missouri Historical Society Archives in St. Louis a few decades ago.
The man posted is not a woman. This is a man in a short shirt. I will share any of the images next time back to St. Louis.

[grahamew]

Studies of Palaneapape (Struck-by-Ree or Struck-by-Arikara) and a Dog Travois from Wimar’s Sketchbook No. 2 [St. Louis Art Museum, 60:1941.1-.38]


As we can see, some of Wimar's work was based on photographs:

Strike the Ree/Struck by the Ree




Iron Horn, 1859


Studies of Two Native Americans*, Knife, and Beaded Scabbard, Decorated Pouch, circa 1858-62
* The one on the right elsewhere identified as mixed race. Unfortunately, neither are named.


At right: The White Parfleche, second chief of the Arikara. Note the three-bladed club.


Regis De Trobriand's sketch of White Parfleche, approximately ten years later...?


At bottom right, I think this says 'Broken Arm' but no clue as to the tribe. Wonder if it's the Cree painted by Catlin in the 1830s...


Mandan earth lodges