Carl Rungius Art for Sale at Auction

Painter, Illustrator, b. 1869 - d. 1959

(born 1869; died 1959) American artist. During his lifetime, Carl Rungius was among the best-known painters of North American game animals. He specialized in big game, painting moose, bear and elk, as well as mountain sheep, goats, deer and antelope. Although animals were his primary interest, his landscape backgrounds were equally well painted. Rungius was born in Germany and received his formal training in Berlin, attending the Berlin School of Art, the Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Applied Arts. His interest in wildlife came naturally as his father was a minister concerned with conservation and his grandfather was a taxidermist and animal painter. When he immigrated to the United States in 1894, he established a studio in New York. That same year, Rungius' uncle in Brooklyn invited him on a trip to the West that resulted in a year's stay. During the summer of 1895, he painted in Yellowstone National Park and other areas of Wyoming. A recognized naturalist and an assiduous student of anatomy and large fauna, Rungius returned to the West many times after his initial trip, traveling from Arizona to Alaska to sketch and collect artifacts to bring back to his New York studio. He eventually established a summer studio in Banff, Alberta, Canada.
Credit: Sotheby’s, New York, November 29, 2001- American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. Lot 203