Friedrich Gauermann

Friedrich Gauermann (1807-1862) was an Austrian painter known for landscapes and scenes featuring animals. Born at Miesenbach near Gutenstein, in Lower Austria, he is regarded as one of the leading animal painters of his time and an early representative of a naturalistic style devoted to nature in all its variety.

The son of the landscape painter Jacob Gauermann, he was expected by his father to take up farming, but the example of an elder brother, who died young, encouraged his interest in art. Under his father's guidance he began to study landscape, and he diligently copied the works of the leading animal painters held in the academy and court library in Vienna. In summers he travelled to make studies in Styria, Tyrol and Salzburg.

His career took off at the Vienna exhibition of 1824, where two animal pictures attracted attention. Commissions followed from Prince Metternich and from Caraman, the French ambassador. His painting The Storm, shown in 1829, greatly raised his reputation, after which his works were much sought after and sold for high prices. In 1834 his Field Labourer was widely seen as the most noteworthy picture at the Vienna exhibition.

His distinctive quality lies in showing human and animal figures within suitable landscapes, presenting nature as a living whole. He excelled in depicting animals in mountain settings, combining technical mastery with patient observation, precise handling of detail and clean colour. He died in Vienna in 1862. After his death the Austrian Kunstverein prepared a selection of fifty-three of his works for engraving, and in 2007 the Austrian post issued a stamp marking the bicentenary of his birth.