Lot Essay
RELATED LITERATURE:
H. E. Bovay, Le Canada et les Suisses, 1604-1974, Fribourg, 1976, p. 223, nos. 156-158
A.M. Josephy, Jr., The Artist was a Young Man: The Life Story of Peter Rindisbacher, Fort Worth, 1970, no. XXXIV, illus.
Born in 1806, Peter Rindisbacher loved to draw from early on. At the age of 12 he received what would be his only art instruction on a trip with the artist Jacob S. Weibel. Several years later, in 1820, the artist's father was recruited to come to North America and settle in the Red River Colony in Canada in an area that is now Winnepeg. On the journey across the Atlantic, the artist made a number of sketches and when he arrived at the colony in Canada, he began to create one of the most interesting and certainly the earliest visual representations of the life of the American Indian and the frontier West.
Rindisbacher was in a unique situation and had a wonderful vantage point from which to record the life of the American frontier. Arthur Josephy, author of The Artist was a Young Man, remarks, "Unlike almost all the other artists of the early West, he had not travelled deliberately into the Indian country on limited visits to observe and paint native ways. From Switzerland, he had been plumped down as a permanent resident in a far outpost of white colonization."
Although Rindisbacher portrayed many aspects of frontier life in the west, he seemed particularly fascinated with the hunting of ÿbuffalo. According to Henry Bovay, who is updating his 1976 catalogue raisonné of the artist's work, there are several other versions of this scene now in the collections of the National Archives of Canada in Ottowa, the U.S. Military Academy Museum at West Point, and the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg. These works were produced early in the artist's stay at the Red River Colony circa 1822-1824.
Unfortunately, Rindisbacher only lived to 28 years, it is speculated that the habit of putting his brushes in his mouth caused him to die of poisioning. In his short career, he created an ouevre of approximately 220 works, many of which are in public collections. Rindisbacher was in a unique position to depict early frontier life, as well as the hunting of buffalo, and he managed to do so with accuracy and draughtsmanship that was unequalled at the time.
H. E. Bovay, Le Canada et les Suisses, 1604-1974, Fribourg, 1976, p. 223, nos. 156-158
A.M. Josephy, Jr., The Artist was a Young Man: The Life Story of Peter Rindisbacher, Fort Worth, 1970, no. XXXIV, illus.
Born in 1806, Peter Rindisbacher loved to draw from early on. At the age of 12 he received what would be his only art instruction on a trip with the artist Jacob S. Weibel. Several years later, in 1820, the artist's father was recruited to come to North America and settle in the Red River Colony in Canada in an area that is now Winnepeg. On the journey across the Atlantic, the artist made a number of sketches and when he arrived at the colony in Canada, he began to create one of the most interesting and certainly the earliest visual representations of the life of the American Indian and the frontier West.
Rindisbacher was in a unique situation and had a wonderful vantage point from which to record the life of the American frontier. Arthur Josephy, author of The Artist was a Young Man, remarks, "Unlike almost all the other artists of the early West, he had not travelled deliberately into the Indian country on limited visits to observe and paint native ways. From Switzerland, he had been plumped down as a permanent resident in a far outpost of white colonization."
Although Rindisbacher portrayed many aspects of frontier life in the west, he seemed particularly fascinated with the hunting of ÿbuffalo. According to Henry Bovay, who is updating his 1976 catalogue raisonné of the artist's work, there are several other versions of this scene now in the collections of the National Archives of Canada in Ottowa, the U.S. Military Academy Museum at West Point, and the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg. These works were produced early in the artist's stay at the Red River Colony circa 1822-1824.
Unfortunately, Rindisbacher only lived to 28 years, it is speculated that the habit of putting his brushes in his mouth caused him to die of poisioning. In his short career, he created an ouevre of approximately 220 works, many of which are in public collections. Rindisbacher was in a unique position to depict early frontier life, as well as the hunting of buffalo, and he managed to do so with accuracy and draughtsmanship that was unequalled at the time.