Paul Friedrich Meyerheim

Paul Friedrich Meyerheim (13 July 1842 – 14 September 1915) was a German painter and graphic artist. He did portraits and landscapes, but is best known as a painter of animals.

Life

Paul Friedrich Meyerheim was born in Berlin on 13 July 1842. He and his brother took their first art lessons from his father. As a young boy, he was fascinated with the new Berlin Zoological Gardens and went there so often he was able to befriend Martin Lichtenstein, the zoo's founder, who allowed him into areas that were normally closed to the public. This experience led him to specialize in animal painting.

From 1857 to 1860 he attended the Prussian Academy of Arts. Later, he made several study trips to Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands and spent a year in Paris. In 1883, he established an animal painting class at the Academy. He was appointed a Professor there in 1887 and became a member of the Academic Senate. and was buried in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

Other painters in the Meyerheim family His father was the painter Friedrich Eduard Meyerheim (1808–1879); his elder brother, Franz Eduard Meyerheim, was also a painter as were his uncles, Wilhelm Alexander (1815–1882) and Hermann (fl.1860s).

Panels from Life History of a Locomotive