Herman A. Krause

Seeking paintings and woodcarvings by Herman A. Krause. Contact: info@GalleryofWisconsinArt.com

BORN: 1891, Brandenburg, Germany

DIED: 1958

Muralist, Herman Krause, was born in the province of Brandenburg, Germany in 1891 and brought to the United States when he was just 6 months old. His family settled on farmland in Medina, New York for six years before moving to Saint Louis and then to Lincoln County, Wisconsin, where they permanently settled on a forty acre piece of land.

Krause showed an interest in drawing at an early age, and was encouraged by his teachers. But he had to drop out of school at the fourth grade to work on the family farm. At the age of 19 began traveling as a logger to earn moree money for his family. He worked in Denver, Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Victoria, Vancouver Island, and San Francisco where he was able to visit art museums and parks.

When he was 35, Krause returned to Wisconsin to help his ill father work the family farm. Along with his brother, they cultivated his family’ five-hundred acre farm lying in a pine forest area north of Tomahawk, WI.

During evenings and bad storms, Krause began to take up drawing and painting again. This led, after 13 years, John Stewart Curry to pay him a visit at his farm. Curry admired his artistry and encouraged him to create his own distinct style. Curry stated Krause was “an accomplished and primitive painter, his work showing striking originality of design and individual characterizations: his paintings are beautiful in design and feeling”.

Krause was also a woodcarver. On this medium, Curry stated “they show a monumental sculptural style, equalling the work of more experienced lay woodcarvers of Sweden and Denmark.”

Life Magazine described Krause as “one of Wisconsin’s ace exhibitors. Krause paints from imagination, specializes in romantic landscapes in the manner of Albert Ryder.”

Among Krause’s largest undertakings was a 12-foot mural featuring traditional loggers and another featuring the wildlife of the northwoods purchased as a class memorial in 1944 by Farm Short Course to be hung in a University of Wisconsin Madison dormitory. His smaller paintings and carvings were collected by locals.

PHOTO AND BIOGRAPHIC CREDIT:

John Rector Barton, “Painter of the North Woods”, Rural Artists of Wisconsin (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1948), 73-78.