Emanuel Leutze

[This biography from the archives of AskART.com.]

Brought to the United States from Germany when he was 9 years old, he was raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and then in Philadelphia where he got his art instruction. Early recognized for his portrait and figure painting, he became well-known in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and in Southern States, but he returned to Philadelphia in 1839. Local persons sponsored him to study at Dusseldorf Art Academy in Germany, and he stayed from 1841 to 1859 but left the Academy to set up his own studio. He mentored for many American art students and became the link between what is known as the Dusseldorf School of historical painting and the American School. He also traveled extensively in Germany and Italy.

He is best known for two historical paintings, "Washington Crossing the Delaware," 1851, and "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way," 1862. Ironically, "Washington Crossing the Delaware" was intended by him to buoy the spirits of German liberals whose Revolution in 1848 had failed, but it became interpreted as an expression of American patriotism. Many of his American friends in Dusseldorf were models for the work. The original was destroyed during World War II, but he had painted a second version in 1851, which became the one that circulated in the United States where his realistically drawn, patriotic paintings were very popular.

The last nine years of his life he traveled between and worked in New York and Washington D.C. and settled his wife and children from Germany in Washington D.C. He did a huge mural on commission in the Capitol Building, and applied a method called sterochromy, which he learned specially in Germany to execute the mural. This process was the application of watercolor directly to plaster without losing color strength.