Edward Beyer (1820–1865) was a German landscape painter who was active in the United States and became known for his depiction of the Antebellum South.
He visited Virginia in 1854 and stayed until about 1856 or 1857 sketching and painting a number of scenes that would appear in his "Album of Virginia" (1857).[1][2]
Edward Beyer eventually returned to Germany and died at Munich in 1865.[3]
Artistic style
Winchester Medical College, Winchester, Virginia (detail). Edward Beyer, 1856.
Beyer's style was formed at the Dusseldorf Academy with its tradition of Classicism and Romanticism and critics hold a favorable view of Breyer's artistic endeavors.[4]
In his painting of the Bellevue Plantation near Ridgeway, Henry County, Virginia, a homestead of the Andrew and Maria Lewis family, Beyer depicts eight slaves toiling in a wheat field. The painting is accomplished "in the dramatic style of the Dusseldorf Academy, which emphasized atmosphere, action and drama."[5]
Some of his works comprised industrial scenes such as railroads and bridges, juxtaposing romanticism and realism.
The painting of what was Charleston, Virginia in 1854 was declared a painting trifecta by Antiques Roadshow (U.S. TV series) appraiser Colleene Fesko. Fesko said she was amazed when she saw the piece and had to pull out her glasses to fully examine in detail the panoramic work. While in Charleston, Beyer was offered a commission from a number of businessmen in the community. They had to have a lottery to decide who would own the painting, and it stayed with the same family ever since. Fesko said that Beyer created 40 panoramic landscape paintings of Virginia towns in the mid-19th century.[6][7][8]
Art historians lauded Beyer's "delicate and precise style" and "characteristic refinement of proportion."[9]
^Beyer, Edward. Album of Virginia. Richmond: W. Loeillot in Berlin and Rau & Son in Dresden for Beyer, 1857-1858. Issued in portfolio consisting of 41 unbound col. plates and pamphlet (vii, 40 p.); the plates were originally published separately in 1858; the pamphlet was originally published in 3 v. in 1857-58 under title: Description of the Album of Virginia, or The Old Dominion.
^Hans Paffrath / Museum Kunstpalast|Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Düsseldorfer Malerschule. Bd. 1, F. Bruckmann, München 1997. Anhang, S. 439. ISBN3765430099
^Holle Schneider-Ricks, and George A. McLean. Edward Beyer's Travels through America: an artist's view, including Edward Beyer's Cyclorama. Roanoke, VA: Historical Society of Western Virginia; Lynchburg, VA: Blackwell Press, 2011.
^Wright, R. Lewis. Edward Beyer in America: a German painter looks at Virginia, Art & Antiques, November/December 1980.
^Wright, R. Lewis. Edward Beyer and the Album of Virginia, Virginia cavalcade, Volume 22, number 4, 1973, pp. 36-47.
^Deák, Gloria Gilda. Picturing America, 1497-1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory That Is Now the United States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 721. ISBN0691039992
Further reading
Edward Beyer. Description of the Album of Virginia: Or, The Old Dominion, Illustrated. Richmond, Va: Enquirer Book and Job Print. Office, 1857.
Beyer, Edward. Edward Beyer's Cyclorama: malerische Reise nach New York und durch die Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, zurück nach Hamburg. Dresden: Meinhold, 1860.
Edward Beyer's Cyclorama malerische Reise nach New York und durch die Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, zurück nach Hamburg. Dresden: Meinhold, 1860. Microopaque. Louisville, Ky.: Lost Cause Press, 1962.
Beyer, Edward, Holle Schneider-Ricks, and George A. McLean. Edward Beyer's Travels Through America: An Artist's View; Including Edward Beyer's Cyclorama; Translated by Holle Schneider with an Introduction by George A. McLean, Jr. Roanoke, VA: Historical Society of Western Virginia, 2011.
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