Edward Bierstadt

Edward Bierstadt (September 11, 1824 – June 15, 1906) was a photographer of portraits and landscapes as well as an engraver and a pioneer of color photography in the United States.

Early life Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Rhine Province, Prussia, 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.

As a boy, his family moved to the United States, and they settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. together with his other older brother Charles Bierstadt.

Bierstadt was hired by William West Durant 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 in the Adirondacks.

He founded the Photo-Plate Printing Company in 1870, which produced collotype prints for several significant book illustrations. The company was considered one of the best printers in the United States.

In 1894, his work in color photography gained attention when he exhibited prints of oil and watercolor paintings, portraits, floral studies, and other subjects. Bierstadt's color reproductions of rugs were so accurate that they were used by salesmen on the street instead of carrying the actual rugs themselves.

Bierstadt said that he made color portraits as early as July 1890, which is the earliest claim for a color photographic portrait. He first exhibited color portraits in 1892 and continued to do so throughout the 1890s. These portraits, which required several minutes of exposure time, were highly regarded despite their imperfections. Bierstadt's only surviving color portrait is that of his younger brother, Albert Bierstadt.

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