Henry Ritter (24 May 1816, in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

– 21 December 1853, in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

) was a Canadian-born German

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

painter and illustrator; associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule.

Biography

His father was a Hanoverian officer, working with the British military, and his mother was English. At a young age, he went to live with an uncle in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, where he served a commercial apprenticeship. After 1832, he received his first art lessons from

Heinrich Jacob Aldenrath Heinrich Jakob Aldenrath (17 February 1775, Lübeck – 25 February 1844, Hamburg) was a portrait painter, miniaturist, and lithographer. Life Aldenrath was a pupil of Johann Jakob Tischbein and of Friedrich Carl Gröger, with whom he develo ...

and

Friedrich Carl Gröger Friedrich Carl Gröger (14 October 1766 in Plön – 9 November 1838 in Hamburg) was a north-German portrait painter and lithographer. One of the most respected portraitists of his time in northern Germany, his works are to be found in sever ...

. From 1836 to 1847, he was a student at the

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová, ...

, in the classes of

Karl Ferdinand Sohn Karl Ferdinand Sohn (10 December 1805 in Berlin – 25 November 1867 in Cologne) was a German painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography He was born in Berlin and started his studies at the age of eighteen under Wilhelm von Scha ...

and

Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow (7 September 1789 – 19 March 1862) was a German Romantic painter. Biography He was born in Berlin, the second son of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow, who gave him his first lessons in drawing. He then turne ...

. During his last seven years there, he was a member of the Master Class and had his own studio at the Akademie. Most influential, however, were the private lessons he took in 1837 and 1838 from Rudolf Jordan, who took him on trips to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

, became his friend and taught him an

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

approach to painting.Biographical notes
@ Wikisource. In 1842, he married a landowner's daughter from

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

. Due to an ailment diagnosed as a "nervous fever", he moved to , near

Siegburg Siegburg (i.e. ''fort on the Sieg river''; Ripuarian: ''Sieburch'') is a city in the district of Rhein-Sieg-Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the banks of the rivers Sieg and Agger, 10 kilometres from the former seat of ...

. He returned to Düsseldorf in 1852 and died there the following year. His remaining works were preserved by Ferdinand Fagerlin, who married his sister-in-law and took over his studio. He was, perhaps, better known as an illustrator than a painter. From 1847, he was a regular contributor to the satirical '. In 1849, he published ''Der Politische Struwwelpeter'', a satire on the recent

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

and the subject of

German unification The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of t ...

; based on the children's book, ''

Struwwelpeter ''Der Struwwelpeter'' ("shock-headed Peter" or "Shaggy Peter") is an 1845 German children's book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastr ...

''. From 1851 to 1853, he provided drawings for albums published by

Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter (15 March 1816 in Königswinter – 29 June 1873 in Bad Neuenahr) was a German novelist and poet. He settled in Cologne, and became a popular poet, novelist, and chronicler of the Rhine region. Biography His ...

. Among his notable book illustrations are those for a collection of works by

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...

Selected works

File:Ritter-Writing.gif, Writing to the Family File:Henry Ritter - Illustration Der politische Struwwelpeter.jpg, Divided Germany, from ''Der Politische Struwwelpeter'' File:Ritter-English.jpg, English People File:Ritter-Smugglers.gif, Fighting Smugglers on
the English Coast

References

External links

* Illustrations for works by Washington Irvin
Online
@ the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (german: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of th ...

ArtNet: More works by Ritter.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ritter, Henry 1816 births 1853 deaths 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German genre painters German illustrators Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni Artists from Montreal Canadian emigrants to Germany Düsseldorf school of painting