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Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865-1926) Wilhelm Kuhnert was a master of painting grand animal portraits.
Born 1865 in Oppeln, Germany, he studied at the Berlin Academy
of Arts. He trained under the prominent animal painter Richard
Friese (1854-1918) an artist who emphasized the importance
of studying animals in their native habitats. Kuhnert first
studied and painted the animals of Germany and Switzerland.
The sale of the reproductions of some of his paintings enabled
Kuhnert to make his first overseas journey to Africa in 1891.
He was one of the first painters of the modern era to go to
Africa to sketch the wildlife in their natural habitat. As
an expert huntsman, he observed and killed his wild ‘models’.
His drawings were accurate, and expertly executed. This work
was fundamentally different to the work of many other contemporary
artists, who based their paintings solely on studies of animals
in zoos. In 1905 and 1911-12, he again travelled on safaris
to the German and English colonial territories in South and
East Africa. In 1906, he toured India and Ceylon. During these
expeditions, Kuhnert made extensive field notes and sketches
of the plants, animals and the local people of these regions.
This study material provided the basis for the oil paintings
that he later executed in his studio in Berlin. Along with Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939), the distinguished
Swedish painter of European wildlife and Carl Rungius (1869-1959),
the prominent painter of North American big game, Kuhnert
was one of the three great game painters of the period. African Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) The African Buffalo is characterised buy a heavy brow and upward curved horns. They stand 1.5 metre at shoulder height, an weigh 750 kg. Found in Southern Africa, buffalo live in herds of several
thousand, which can be smaller during a drought. Their natural
habitat is savannah and woodland close to water and they live
mostly on grass. Although they are preyed on by lions, a wounded
buffalo is considered the most dangerous of game animals. This painting was bequeathed to the Natural History Museum by Sir William Garstin in 1925, having been purcahsed by him from the Fine Art Society Gallery in 1911. Exhibition and publication details Thackray, J. C. A. (1995) A catalogue of portraits, paintings and sculpture at the Natural History Museum London. Mansell: London. 70pp. References and further reading Christies (1996) Wildlife art: Friday, 31 May 1996… Christie’s, London. 154pp. Kuhnert, W. (1957) De Schilderkunst van Wilhelm Kuhnert.
Van der Loeff, Enschede. 244pp.
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