Cincinnati Art Museum pays tribute to painter Henry Mosler
From June 10 to September 4, 2022, the Cincinnati Art Museum presents "Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial," an exhibition featuring more than 30 works by Henry Mosler.
Source: Cincinnati Art Museum · Image: Henry Mosler (USA, 1841-1920), "Plum Street Temple", 1866, oil on canvas, Cincinnati Skirball Museum; gift of Audrey Skirball Kenis, granddaughter of the artist, 41.259
Born in Prussia into a Jewish family, Henry Mosler emigrated to the United States with his family at the age of eight. After a brief stay in New York, the Mosler family moved to Cincinnati, then home to a number of families of German-Jewish origin. In Cincinnati he had the opportunity to learn from the engraver Horace C. Grosvenor and the painters James Henry Beard and George Kerr. His training as a reporter and news illustrator during the American Civil War helped to consolidate his pictorial style, rich in details born of a keen observation of the society of his time.
Most of the more than 30 works on display are from the Cincinnati Art Museum's own collection, plus some notable loans such as "Plum Street Temple" (1866) from the Skirball Museum. According to the museum, “Mosler was also an avid and accomplished draftsman, as reflected in the more than six hundred drawings in the museum’s remarkable holdings. This wealth of Mosler drawings enables us, for the first time, to display his oil paintings side by side with their preparatory studies.”
“From figures to furnishings, Mosler strove through assiduous studies to get every aspect of his paintings just right. With their homey details, carefully wrought figures, and skillful handling of light, his paintings delight the eye and draw us in”, said Dr. Julie Aronson, curator of American Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings at the museum. “The Cincinnati art world provided essential formative experiences for Mosler, and the city took pride in the accolades he won in official art circles. He chose not to express his Jewish heritage in the narratives of his paintings, preferring to focus instead on then popular subjects from European country life.”

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