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Cornelius
Krieghoff is one of the major contributor to Canadian
fine arts. Born on June 19, 1815 in
Amsterdam, Holland, Krieghoff arrived to New York
in 1836. He spent his early years in the States as
an army artist and when he left the army in 1840, he
married Emilie Gauthier dit Saint-Germain and moved to
Canada where the home of Emilie was. In the same
year, Emilie gave birth to a son whom they named Henry
(Ernest).
After
his journey to Europe in 1845, Krieghoff returned to
Montreal and since then, he was considered a
"Painter of Canada". Krieghoff was
mainly a Canadian landscape painter, although in many of
his paintings the theme of "les habitans" is
woven exquisitely into his works.
During
the period of 1846 to 1853, Krieghoff stayed in Longueil,
Montreal where he earned his living by selling his own
paintings and reproductions of famous paintings.
The sale of his own paintings are bad because Canadian,
especially the French Canadian, of that time didn't like
the genre of his work. Lucky for him, the paintings
which he had reproduced are better in sales.
However, Krieghoff hated to copy paintings, so, he did
very few of these reproductions. With such limited
income, Krieghoff could hardly live in the fashion that
he wanted; generously and lavishly in drinking houses.
However,
it is known that between 1847 and 1849, Krieghoff taught
painting at a school operated by Missess Plimsoll on
Bonaventure street.
In
fact, Krieghoff's success in Montreal was only eminent
in 2 art auction sales (January 1848 and February 1850)
during the period of 1847-1850. In one of these
auction sales, Krieghoff competed with Paul Kane who was
also a famous painter at that time. He was a very
productive artist as he had a lot of paintings in these
two auctions.
By the year 1860, Krieghoff was a well-established
painter in Quebec. After that, he travelled around
in Europe and continued to paint and selling them.
After his last visit to Quebec in the late 1871, the
artist moved permanently to Chicago where he died few
months later. He died on 8 March 1872 at the age
of 56 and was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.
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