Edward Bierstadt (September 11, 1824 – June 15, 1906) was a

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...

s and landscapes as well as an engraver in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Early life

Bierstadt was born in

Solingen Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366 ...

, Rhine Province,

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

on September 11, 1824. He was the son of Henry Bierstadt (1785–1866), a cooper, and Christiana ( née Tilmans) Bierstadt (1792–1864). His younger brother was noted painter

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

. As a boy, his family moved to the United States and they settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Career

In 1860, he opened his own studio in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

along with his brother, Albert Bierstadt, whose artwork he made into

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

s. He produced stereoscopic images for Bierstadt Brothers, together with his other older brother Charles Bierstadt. Bierstadt was hired by

William West Durant William West Durant (1850–1934) was a designer and developer of camps in the Adirondack Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas, Camp Pine Knot and Great Camp Sagamore which are National Historic Landmarks. He was the son of Thomas C. ...

to take a series of photos for an advertising brochure entitled ''The Adirondacks, Artotype Views Among the Mountains and Lakes of the North Woods'' to publicize Blue Mountain Lake and

Raquette Lake Raquette Lake is the source of the Raquette River in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. It is near the community of Raquette Lake, New York. The lake has of shoreline with pines and mountains bordering the lake. It is located in the t ...

in the

Adirondacks The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular d ...

. Bierstadt held an 1876 patent for an improvement to the

stereoscope A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image. A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that makes the ima ...

. Along with his brother, he produced some stereoscopic photographs from across the country, sometimes credited as the "Bierstadt Brothers". Bierstadt died in

on June 15, 1906.

References

External links

*
Saint Hubert's Isle - Photographs by Edward Bierstadt Internet Archive: Bierstadt, Edward. ''Picturesque St. Augustine, Views in the Old Florida City'', New York: The Artotype Publishing Company, 1891.
1824 births 1906 deaths Prussian emigrants to the United States 19th-century American photographers 19th-century American inventors American engravers People from New Bedford, Massachusetts Photographers from Massachusetts Photographers from New York City {{US-photographer-stub