Heinrich C. Berann

Heinrich Caesar Berann (31 March 1915 – 4 December 1999) was an Austrian painter and cartographer. He achieved world fame with his panoramic maps that combined modern cartography with classical painting. His work includes maps of Olympic Games sites, of mountainous regions published in the National Geographic Magazine, and four panorama posters of national parks published by the U.S. National Park Service.

Early life Berann was born into a family of sculptors and painters in Innsbruck, in the County of Tyrol. Between 1930 and 1933, he studied painting at the Federal School of Art and Design in Innsbruck, but was unable to survive solely as a painter during the Great Depression. After graduating, he worked as a freelance artist and graphic designer. He eventually painted about 20 maps for National Geographic including Mont Blanc (September 1965), five maps of the Leeward Islands (October 1966), Sky World of the Himalayas (October 1966), a map of the Pacific Ocean floor (October 1969), The Delta Project in the Netherlands (April 1968), Nepal (November 1971), and A Traveller's Map of the Alps (April 1985).

Near the end of his career he painted four panoramas for the U.S. National Park Service of North Cascades National Park (1987), Yosemite National Park (1989), Yellowstone National Park (1991), and finally Denali National Park and Preserve (1994).

He died in 1999 at age 84 in Lans, Tyrol, where he had lived since 1952.

Style He combined traditional and modern techniques to develop a style of "mountainscape painting" and the "modern panoramic map" that made him famous.

"There's just something absolutely magical about his panoramas," according to Tom Patterson, a senior cartographer for the U.S. National Park Service.