A Painter-Explorer
ONE OF THE most iconic bodies of work depicting the American West was made by a European artist who spent less than two years in America and then never returned. In 1833–34, the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer acted as official artist of an expedition up the Missouri River made by Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, a German naturalist, ethnologist, and explorer. Only 23 when Maximilian hired him, Bodmer made some 400 watercolor paintings and ink drawings during the trip, which he later had made into aquatints to illustrate the prince’s book, Travels in the Interior of North America, published in 1839–41.
Bodmer’s images, made with sensitivity, refinement, and profound attention to detail,
