Rudolf Friedrich Kurz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Rudolph Friedrich Kurz
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Self-portrait
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| Born | January 8, 1818. Bern, Switzerland |
| Died | October 16, 1871 (aged 53) Bern, Switzerland |
| Occupation | writer, animal and landscape painter, teacher |
| Language | Swiss |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Alma mater | Bern University |
| Notable works | The Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz |
Rudolph Friedrich Kurz (1818–1871) was a Swiss artist and writer. He traveled to the United States to paint and study Native Americans. He is best known for his journals. These journals describe life along the Mississippi and upper Missouri rivers in the mid-1800s. They offer interesting comments on the people and places he saw.
Early Life and Art Training
Rudolph Kurz was born in 1818 in Bern, Switzerland. His parents were Maria Stooss and Johannes Kurz. His father had moved to Switzerland from Reutlingen, Germany.
Rudolph started taking drawing classes early on. He studied at the Bern gymnasium with Joseph Volmar. In 1838, he went to Paris to continue his art studies. There, he met famous people like Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Bodmer. When he returned to Bern in 1842, he became a painting teacher.
Adventures in America
In 1846, Kurz left Switzerland and sailed to the United States. He wanted to explore the American West. He traveled along the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. He wrote about the people and places he saw in his journals.
Life on the frontier was exciting but also tough. He tried mining and trading horses, but these ventures were not successful. In 1850, he married Witthae, a daughter of an Iowa leader. However, Witthae missed her family and left after only two weeks.
Working at Forts
Rudolph Kurz struggled to make a living for four years. In June 1851, he met Alexander Culbertson in Council Bluffs. Kurz was hired to work as a clerk for the American Fur Company. He traveled by steamboat to Fort Berthold in North Dakota.
While at Fort Berthold, Kurz sketched many Native Americans and scenes. But the local Mandan and Hidatsa people believed that painting could bring bad luck. A serious illness, cholera, spread among the Native Americans that summer. Almost everyone got sick except Kurz. People started to blame him for the sickness. So, he quickly left for Fort Union on August 18, 1851.
At Fort Union, Kurz had better chances to paint. The fort's manager, Edwin Thompson Denig, asked him to paint many people and places. Kurz's drawings of Fort Union's inside areas were very important. They were later used to help rebuild parts of the fort in 1989.
Return to Switzerland
Kurz returned to Bern, Switzerland, in 1852. He continued to teach painting. First, he taught at a local school. Later in his life, he opened his own art school. One of his students was Fritz Schenk. Schenk later moved to the U.S. in 1870 and worked at Fort Randall in South Dakota.
Rudolph Kurz also created a small dictionary of Native American languages.
