KOERNER,W∣LLIAMHENRY Detlef b. November 17, 1878; Lunden, Holstein d.August 11, 1938; New York City
Nationally recognized illustrator for weekly magazines and novels. Inspired by letters from a relative, the Koerner family moved first to Indiana in 1881 and soon afterward moved westward to the Mississippi River town of Clinton, Iowa.
Koerner graduated from high school in 1896 and, as part of the graduation exercises, drew sketches to the accompaniment of music. At age twenty, he moved to Chicago and became part of the famous newspaper world of Ben Hecht’s play, The Front Page. He became assistant art editor for the Chicago Tribune in 1903 and married Lillian Lusk on June 24, 1903.After two years in Battle Creek, Michigan, working as art editor for a regional woman’s magazine, Koerner moved to New York City in 1905 and studied at the Art Students’ League. Eventually he and Lillian moved on to Wilmington, Delaware, where Koerner became part of the Brandywine Art Group. Under the direction of Howard Pyle, he and other students such as Newell Convers Wyeth were encouraged to apply imagination to their illustration and maintain a narrative thread to the image created. He went on to become a nationally recognized freelance illustrator of more than 900 articles, short stories, and serial installments. His paintings were published by Collier's, Harper's, Cosmopolitan, and the Saturday Evening Post. Between 1917 and 1922 he became connected to the Post as their editors selected 281 drawings and paintings for publication.
Koerner gained his greatest fame by applying his German American values to the glorification of the American cowboy. Koerner began illustrating for Zane Grey, and very carefully researched every image by reading at the New York Public Library and visiting the exhibits at the Museum of Natural Science. Eventually he expressed his philosophy of illustration by saying, “I try to draw the man the author describes................. I concentrate on the character
until it comes alive and I can see him in my mind’s eye” (www.bbhc.org). The real breakthrough occurred when he received an assignment to create six paintings for Emerson Hough’s novel of the Oregon Trail, The Covered Wagon (1921). Included was his greatest single painting, Madonna of the Prairies. He inspired a later generation of German American artists of the Western frontier, such as Nicholas Eggenhofer (1898—1985). After his death, Koerner’s wife locked up all of his works, and they remained forgotten until her death in 1962. His fame and reputation have since slowly emerged with major exhibits and auctions.
William H. Roba
See also Indiana
References and Further Reading
Hutchinson, W. H. The World, the Work and the West ofW H. D. Koerner. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1978.
Stolz, Gerd. W H. D. Koerner—Der Maler des “Wilden Westens”aus Dithmarschen. Husum, 2003.
Todtmann, Joy. “Zuruck aus dem Wilden Westen.” Der Marschbote (January 4, 2001) 7.