Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Guthers, Karl

GUTHERS, Karl, artist, b. in Switzerland in 1844. He was brought to the United States by his parents in 1851. His father settled in Cincinnati and was the first to introduce terra-cotta objects of art into this country. The son began his professional career by modelling clay in his father's studio. He afterward studied under a portrait-painter in Memphis, Tenn., and in 1868 went to Paris, where he studied with Cabasson and Pils, and was a pupil at the Académie des beaux arts. At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war, he went to Belgium, studying in Brussels and Antwerp under Stalleart and Robert. He took up his residence in Rome in 1871, where he executed his first important work. He returned to Memphis in 1873, painting portraits and figure-pieces in oil and water-colors. In 1874 he removed to St. Louis, where he was connected with the art department of Washington university, and was instrumental in the organization of the school and museum of fine arts in the life class in which he taught from 1876 till 1883-'4. In the latter year he went to Paris, where he has since remained, studying in the Julian school. To the Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia he sent his “Ecce Homo” and his “Awakening of Spring,” receiving for the latter work a medal and diploma.