Ferdinand Burgdorff

Ferdinand Burgdorff (November 29, 1881 – May 12, 1975) was a landscape painter, and printmaker whose subjects included the Monterey Peninsula, Yosemite, and the desert Southwest. He was an illustrator for Sunset Magazine.

Early life

Burgdorff was born on November 29, 1881, in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, Frederick Burgdorff, was a watchmaker from Hamburg, Germany, while his mother Ida Burgdorff, was of Prussian descent. He attended the Cleveland School of Art in Ohio. Influenced by their work, he left Cleveland to explore the Southwest. He traveled and painted across Arizona and New Mexico.

Burgdorff underwent military training in Marin County for the U.S. Army during World War I. However, he never served on the active front lines. Throughout World War II, he donated numerous canvases to the USO, Red Cross nurses' quarters, and various hospitals.

Career

He was one of the earliest artists that came to the art colony in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Between 1906 and 1908, Burgdorff traveled through Arizona, Europe, and California to paint. On March 14, 1909, Lucy B. Jerome, a critic from The San Francisco Call wrote a review of Burgdorff's art: Under the guidance of Charles S. Aiken, editor of Sunset magazine, Burgdorff exhibited forty to fifty canvases in Portland, Oregon. That August he exhibited at the Schussler Brothers Gallery of San Francisco. Lucy Jerome from The San Francisco Call stated: "six most fairylike and charming small paintings, three water colors and three oils. The one picturing Carmel bay on a starlight night is one of the most charming things seen in a long while."

Two months later, Burgdorff exhibited eight oils at the Vickery, Atkins & Torrey's Gallery in San Francisco. In November 1909, his artwork was exhibited at the Newton J. Tharp Memorial Exhibition (honoring Newton J. Tharp) at the California Club in San Francisco. In early 1910, Burgdorff presented two solo exhibitions in San Francisco galleries.

There is a fresco in the Herrmann Hall's Tower Room at the Naval Postgraduate School (the old Hotel Del Monte), called The Witch Tree. The tree is part of a small grove of native cypress trees that includes the Ghost Tree and the Lone Cypress. He did Cypress Through Fog in 1923, which is in the permanent collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Travels

In 1924, he painted Spanish Caravelle which is in the permanent collection at the De Young Museum.

In 1907, Burgdorff traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico, aspiring to specialize as a painter of desert landscapes over the more conventional aspen and adobe themes that were popular at the time.

In February 1910, The San Francisco Examiner reported Burgdorff's return from his outdoor ventures in the desert and seaside. He prepared to exhibit thirty new paintings from the Arizona's desert to the shores along Monterey Bay. The exhibition was slated for Vickery's gallery in San Francisco, scheduled from March 1 to March 15, 1910. The San Francisco Examiner said: "The canvases show much progress in technique since the picturesque artist first invaded the realism of Bohemia: but he has not abated in his daring color tones or in the broad sweep of his effects."

By 1911, Burgdorff returned to Cleveland, for an exhibition of his desert-themed paintings. Following the show he traveled to several countries. In Paris, he studied under French painter Émile-René Ménard and American painter Florence Esté. His travels continued through Egypt and onward to Asia, spending six months in the Philippines before journeying through China and Japan on his homeward route. One of his main objectives was to see the ancient desert landscapes of Greece and Egypt.

In April 1914, Burgdorff exhibited his work in San Francisco; a review in The San Francisco Examiner stated

Between 1907 and 1924, Burgdorff traveled to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. In 1924, accompanied by cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton, he attended the snake dance at the Hopi Villages in Walpi and Oraibi. Subsequently, they resided at Grandview in the Grand Canyon for three months.

Between 1917 and 1934, Burgdorff made several trips to Yosemite National Park. In 1934, he received a commission to paint the dioramas backgrounds illustrating six life zones at the Yosemite Museum. Collaborating with the museum's preparator's group in Berkeley, he worked under the guidance of Park Naturalist Ansel Hall.

In 1934, Jo Mora and Burgdorff shared quarters at San Francisco's Canterbury Hotel, and spent seven months designing and painting the lobby panels to illustrate themes from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Death

Burgdorff continued to paint until his death on May 12, 1975, at the age of 94.