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The Path of Discovery: The Christine LaJoice Collection of Bernhard Schneider
Photographs
Museum of Wisconsin Art
300 South Sixth Avenue, West Bend. 262-334-9638
www.wisconsinart.org
Through March 30th
By Graeme Reid, Assistant Director, Museum of Wisconsin Art
February 29, 2008. Occasionally, an unknown facet of an artist’s life
comes to light and gives the public a fresh insight into their life and work. In
1885, Bernhard Schneider, after completing his formal academic training in
Munich and Düsseldorf, emigrated to Milwaukee. He was contracted, like many
other German artists, to work for the American Panorama Company because
there were not enough home-grown artists with the technical aptitude. In
Milwaukee he collaboratively worked on producing eight enormous canvases that
would travel throughout the United States for entertainment purposes. When that
industry concluded in 1889, he moved north to the tranquil little town of
Cedarburg, where he painted many tranquil Milwaukee River scenes in both the
German Academic and American Tonalist styles. Although Schneider lived in
Cedarburg, he retained social and business ties with Milwaukee as a member of
the Society of Milwaukee Artists ― later known as the Wisconsin Painters &
Sculptors. A lifelong bachelor, Schneider seldom exhibited his work and rarely
engaged in self-promotion, dying in 1907. End of story on Bernhard Schneider –
or so we thought.
In 2002 Christine LaJoice and her three children lived in Cedarburg, renting an
apartment in an old house. One winter, the furnace started getting temperamental
and during the course of her subterranean trip to fix it, discovered a stack of 4” x
5” glass negatives nestled discretely in the joists. Fascinated, but not knowing
exactly what they were, she realized they were a photographic negative of some
sort, and had a friend make prints. Showing them to antique dealers didn’t help as
most rejected them as essentially worthless. How wrong they were. Taking clues
from clothing, buildings and the fact that several images showed painters,
paintings, an artist’s studio, and still-extant Cedarburg buildings, Christine began
doing some research. Cedarburg and Milwaukee artists at the turn of the century
seemed to be logical initial targets in various local county historical societies and
she prowled the streets of Milwaukee, Cedarburg and Manitowoc trying to match
locations. One figure’s image cropped up seven times – a stout, bearded man
posing by himself, often with one hand hidden. (All the better to utilize the rubber
bulb that activated the “remote” shutter release.) Starting here, Christine started
comparing these images to definitively identified artists, coming to the conclusion
that they were taken by, and of, Bernhard Schneider.
As a painter, Schneider was well established, having built upon his formal training
in Germany and the contacts and reputation he established in Milwaukee as one
of the Panorama Painters. (This was almost an exclusive boys-only club; Amy Boos
was the sole female painter in the group, and is featured in one photograph).
However, this formal, conservative background appears to have cracked just a
little as photography became more mainstream and popular in the 1880s when
cameras became more portable and images more easily rendered. Since its
inception in the 1830s, photography had been derided by painters and sculptors
as being too close to nature and requiring little or no training. However, sometime
in the 1880s or 1890s Schneider obtained a camera capable of recording
images on 4” x 5” glass negatives; sure, larger formats were available but were
not as portable, and as Schneider’s images attest, portability was a necessary
feature. Clearly undeterred by the sentiment that photography was considered
more of a science and not a legitimate art form, his photographs unveil an
embrace of a new technology, using it to record his travels, occupations, daily life
and friends. While today we might categorize them as snapshots, closer
examination reveals his artistic training in the choice of subject matter and
composition: several landscape shots in and around Cedarburg could easily be
transformed into paintings – and were – as evidence confirms. His portraits
equally show sound arrangement. While other pictures can be categorized as
early “street” photography—they record little more than everyday scenes of
Milwaukee’s streets rather than specific buildings or people—these images may
have had other purposes as I shall explain later.
A great feature of this collection is the additional images we now have of
Schneider’s fellow panorama artists and buddies Conrad Heyd, George Peter, F.
W. Heine, Karl Frosh and Amy Boos. Sitting on benches, in his studio or joking
around in front of the camera, these informal shots attest to the close relationships
enjoyed by these artists-in-voluntary-exile. Other pictures show unknown children,
picnic-goers, friends and hunters (there is a great shot of a successful hunting party
with their haul of squirrels and raccoons). In short, Schneider’s photographs show
a sociable man who used his camera to record his life, work and pleasure.
However, some images warrant further examination.
Schneider was not wedded to his traditional art background, but acutely aware
and willing to embrace technological advancements and changing attitudes.
Brought over to work on the massive panorama paintings (a full-scale panorama
was 40’ x 200’), two images show the interior and exterior of the round
panorama painting studio located across the street from Milwaukee’s Exposition
Center which burned down in 1905. These panorama paintings were the IMAX of
their day and an example of one of America’s first nationwide entertainment
industries; original and copy canvases of Civil War battles and religious scenes
were widely popular and exhibited across the country. (The War Between the
States was still fresh in the nation’s consciousness and many survivors still lived;
religion was perennially popular). Indeed, the painting being worked on in
Schneider’s photograph is Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion.
Other images are fascinating for their depiction of new technologies. One shows
a man bent over his camera while in front of him, another camera is set up on a
tripod. Counting Schneider’s camera, three are in use in what can only be
described as the artist and his friends on a photographic jaunt. (Schneider would
have also used a tripod as the 4” x 5” cameras were not fast enough to shoot
unsupported; the man bending over may be using one of the new Kodak Brownie
cameras which came on the market in the late 1880s.) Another image, not in the
exhibition, shows the same group walking along a sidewalk carrying various
wooden boxes: cameras in their collapsed, portable state. Clearly, despite
conventional wisdom that true artists did not use photographs but field sketches
and studies in preparation for paintings, Schneider was unabashed about
recording his involvement with photography. Interestingly, several images exist
(one of which is in the show, the others were too damaged for exhibition) of horse-
drawn carriages and sleds traveling down snow-covered Milwaukee streets.
While these street scenes are interesting in and of themselves (log-paved junctions,
wooden plank sidewalks,) it is worth noting that another panorama painter and
acquaintance of Schneider, Richard Lorenz, made horses and street scenes his
specialty. This raises two interesting questions: did Schneider take photographs
and pass them onto his friend to use as source material, and just how common
was the use of photographs by painters?
Another remarkable image shows two men, two women and a child on bicycles in
a Cedarburg park. So what, you might ask? Like cameras, bicycles are ubiquitous
and unremarkable today. In 1885 John Kemp Starley invented the “safety” bicycle
which was significantly easier to ride (and more comfortable due to pneumatic
tires) than any previous model. Wildly popular in Europe and the US, two of the
bicycles are clearly women’s models. These new “safety” bicycles were so
incredibly popular in the late 1880s and 90s, particularly with women, that they
prompted Susan B. Anthony to call them “freedom machines.” Here is a mode of
transport and leisure activity that was clearly marketed at women and the attendant
change in fashions they occasioned—shorter skirts, abandonment of corsets―
would have profound impact in decades to come.
Fifty-two images taken from the 138 negatives found in the basement are on
display at the Museum of Wisconsin Art until March 30th. This is the first-ever
exhibition of these rare images and they offer a fascinating insight into the private
life and world of a modest, unassuming man as well as images of long-gone
Milwaukee, Cedarburg and Manitowoc. Copies of photographs are available for
$25 with proceeds going towards supporting the institutions that helped Christine
with her research. The MWA would like to offer sincere thanks to Christine for
bringing this unknown aspect of Wisconsin’s art history to light, and to Fuzzy
Duenkel of Duenkel Portrait Art, who developed and digitally enhanced the images
from the often imperfect and damaged glass negatives.
Graeme Reid is Assistant Director at the Museum of Wisconsin Art and a frequent
contributor to Susceptible to Images.
Photographs
Museum of Wisconsin Art
300 South Sixth Avenue, West Bend. 262-334-9638
www.wisconsinart.org
Through March 30th
By Graeme Reid, Assistant Director, Museum of Wisconsin Art
February 29, 2008. Occasionally, an unknown facet of an artist’s life
comes to light and gives the public a fresh insight into their life and work. In
1885, Bernhard Schneider, after completing his formal academic training in
Munich and Düsseldorf, emigrated to Milwaukee. He was contracted, like many
other German artists, to work for the American Panorama Company because
there were not enough home-grown artists with the technical aptitude. In
Milwaukee he collaboratively worked on producing eight enormous canvases that
would travel throughout the United States for entertainment purposes. When that
industry concluded in 1889, he moved north to the tranquil little town of
Cedarburg, where he painted many tranquil Milwaukee River scenes in both the
German Academic and American Tonalist styles. Although Schneider lived in
Cedarburg, he retained social and business ties with Milwaukee as a member of
the Society of Milwaukee Artists ― later known as the Wisconsin Painters &
Sculptors. A lifelong bachelor, Schneider seldom exhibited his work and rarely
engaged in self-promotion, dying in 1907. End of story on Bernhard Schneider –
or so we thought.
In 2002 Christine LaJoice and her three children lived in Cedarburg, renting an
apartment in an old house. One winter, the furnace started getting temperamental
and during the course of her subterranean trip to fix it, discovered a stack of 4” x
5” glass negatives nestled discretely in the joists. Fascinated, but not knowing
exactly what they were, she realized they were a photographic negative of some
sort, and had a friend make prints. Showing them to antique dealers didn’t help as
most rejected them as essentially worthless. How wrong they were. Taking clues
from clothing, buildings and the fact that several images showed painters,
paintings, an artist’s studio, and still-extant Cedarburg buildings, Christine began
doing some research. Cedarburg and Milwaukee artists at the turn of the century
seemed to be logical initial targets in various local county historical societies and
she prowled the streets of Milwaukee, Cedarburg and Manitowoc trying to match
locations. One figure’s image cropped up seven times – a stout, bearded man
posing by himself, often with one hand hidden. (All the better to utilize the rubber
bulb that activated the “remote” shutter release.) Starting here, Christine started
comparing these images to definitively identified artists, coming to the conclusion
that they were taken by, and of, Bernhard Schneider.
As a painter, Schneider was well established, having built upon his formal training
in Germany and the contacts and reputation he established in Milwaukee as one
of the Panorama Painters. (This was almost an exclusive boys-only club; Amy Boos
was the sole female painter in the group, and is featured in one photograph).
However, this formal, conservative background appears to have cracked just a
little as photography became more mainstream and popular in the 1880s when
cameras became more portable and images more easily rendered. Since its
inception in the 1830s, photography had been derided by painters and sculptors
as being too close to nature and requiring little or no training. However, sometime
in the 1880s or 1890s Schneider obtained a camera capable of recording
images on 4” x 5” glass negatives; sure, larger formats were available but were
not as portable, and as Schneider’s images attest, portability was a necessary
feature. Clearly undeterred by the sentiment that photography was considered
more of a science and not a legitimate art form, his photographs unveil an
embrace of a new technology, using it to record his travels, occupations, daily life
and friends. While today we might categorize them as snapshots, closer
examination reveals his artistic training in the choice of subject matter and
composition: several landscape shots in and around Cedarburg could easily be
transformed into paintings – and were – as evidence confirms. His portraits
equally show sound arrangement. While other pictures can be categorized as
early “street” photography—they record little more than everyday scenes of
Milwaukee’s streets rather than specific buildings or people—these images may
have had other purposes as I shall explain later.
A great feature of this collection is the additional images we now have of
Schneider’s fellow panorama artists and buddies Conrad Heyd, George Peter, F.
W. Heine, Karl Frosh and Amy Boos. Sitting on benches, in his studio or joking
around in front of the camera, these informal shots attest to the close relationships
enjoyed by these artists-in-voluntary-exile. Other pictures show unknown children,
picnic-goers, friends and hunters (there is a great shot of a successful hunting party
with their haul of squirrels and raccoons). In short, Schneider’s photographs show
a sociable man who used his camera to record his life, work and pleasure.
However, some images warrant further examination.
Schneider was not wedded to his traditional art background, but acutely aware
and willing to embrace technological advancements and changing attitudes.
Brought over to work on the massive panorama paintings (a full-scale panorama
was 40’ x 200’), two images show the interior and exterior of the round
panorama painting studio located across the street from Milwaukee’s Exposition
Center which burned down in 1905. These panorama paintings were the IMAX of
their day and an example of one of America’s first nationwide entertainment
industries; original and copy canvases of Civil War battles and religious scenes
were widely popular and exhibited across the country. (The War Between the
States was still fresh in the nation’s consciousness and many survivors still lived;
religion was perennially popular). Indeed, the painting being worked on in
Schneider’s photograph is Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion.
Other images are fascinating for their depiction of new technologies. One shows
a man bent over his camera while in front of him, another camera is set up on a
tripod. Counting Schneider’s camera, three are in use in what can only be
described as the artist and his friends on a photographic jaunt. (Schneider would
have also used a tripod as the 4” x 5” cameras were not fast enough to shoot
unsupported; the man bending over may be using one of the new Kodak Brownie
cameras which came on the market in the late 1880s.) Another image, not in the
exhibition, shows the same group walking along a sidewalk carrying various
wooden boxes: cameras in their collapsed, portable state. Clearly, despite
conventional wisdom that true artists did not use photographs but field sketches
and studies in preparation for paintings, Schneider was unabashed about
recording his involvement with photography. Interestingly, several images exist
(one of which is in the show, the others were too damaged for exhibition) of horse-
drawn carriages and sleds traveling down snow-covered Milwaukee streets.
While these street scenes are interesting in and of themselves (log-paved junctions,
wooden plank sidewalks,) it is worth noting that another panorama painter and
acquaintance of Schneider, Richard Lorenz, made horses and street scenes his
specialty. This raises two interesting questions: did Schneider take photographs
and pass them onto his friend to use as source material, and just how common
was the use of photographs by painters?
Another remarkable image shows two men, two women and a child on bicycles in
a Cedarburg park. So what, you might ask? Like cameras, bicycles are ubiquitous
and unremarkable today. In 1885 John Kemp Starley invented the “safety” bicycle
which was significantly easier to ride (and more comfortable due to pneumatic
tires) than any previous model. Wildly popular in Europe and the US, two of the
bicycles are clearly women’s models. These new “safety” bicycles were so
incredibly popular in the late 1880s and 90s, particularly with women, that they
prompted Susan B. Anthony to call them “freedom machines.” Here is a mode of
transport and leisure activity that was clearly marketed at women and the attendant
change in fashions they occasioned—shorter skirts, abandonment of corsets―
would have profound impact in decades to come.
Fifty-two images taken from the 138 negatives found in the basement are on
display at the Museum of Wisconsin Art until March 30th. This is the first-ever
exhibition of these rare images and they offer a fascinating insight into the private
life and world of a modest, unassuming man as well as images of long-gone
Milwaukee, Cedarburg and Manitowoc. Copies of photographs are available for
$25 with proceeds going towards supporting the institutions that helped Christine
with her research. The MWA would like to offer sincere thanks to Christine for
bringing this unknown aspect of Wisconsin’s art history to light, and to Fuzzy
Duenkel of Duenkel Portrait Art, who developed and digitally enhanced the images
from the often imperfect and damaged glass negatives.
Graeme Reid is Assistant Director at the Museum of Wisconsin Art and a frequent
contributor to Susceptible to Images.
| Copyright 2008 Art History Chicks LLC |
| All photographs this page courtesy of the Museum of Wisconsin Art. |
