Wisconsin in Watercolor : The Life and Legend of Folk Artist Paul Seifert [1 ed.] 9780870208928, 9780870208911

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Wisconsin in Watercolor

Wisconsin in Watercolor The Life and Legend of Folk Artist Paul Seifert

JOE KAPLER

WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press Publishers since 1855 The Wisconsin Historical Society helps people connect to the past by collecting, preserving, and sharing stories. Founded in 1846, the Society is one of the nation’s finest historical institutions. Join the Wisconsin Historical Society: wisconsinhistory.org/membership © 2018 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin For permission to reuse material from Wisconsin in Watercolor: The Life and Legend of Folk Artist Paul Seifert (ISBN: 978-0-87020-891-1; e-book: 978-0-87020-892-8), please access www. copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users. Photographs identified with WHI or WHS are from the Society’s collections; address requests to reproduce these photos to the Visual Materials Archivist at the Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706. Printed in the United States of America Cover design by Douglas Griffin Interior design by Tom Heffron 22 21 20 19 18

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kapler, Joe, 1971– author. Title: Wisconsin in watercolor : the life and legend of folk artist Paul Seifert / Joe Kapler. Description: Madison : Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018013983 (print) | LCCN 2018015992 (ebook) | ISBN 9780870208928 (EBook) | ISBN 9780870208911 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Seifert, Paul A., 1840–1921. | Artists—United States—Biography. | German American artists—Biography. | Folk artists—United States—Biography. | Farm life in art. | Wisconsin—In art. Classification: LCC ND1839.S396 (ebook) | LCC ND1839.S396 K37 2018 (print) | DDC 759.13 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013983 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Publication of this book was made possible in part through generous gifts from Jo and Bob Wagner, and Marilyn and Kent Houck.

Detail from the painting of the Daniel Lewis farm (see pages 14–15).

CONTENTS Introduction by Sarah Stolte 1

UNDERSTANDING PAUL SEIFERT Iowa County Treasures EXPLORING THE LEGENDS Revealing Inscriptions

Fragile Creations

11

PROCESS

19

Distinctive Skies

27

SEEKING THE TRUTH

36

Beyond Farm Scenes

43

VISION

COMPOSITION

7

LEGACY A Diverse Range

51

Land and Rock Formations 57 Appendix: Known Watercolor Farm Paintings 111

Acknowledgments 119

Notes 121

Index 125

64 75 83 91 98

103

INTRODUCTION

The idyllic landscape in the frame on the wall before me conjures memories from my childhood—road trips through southwestern Wisconsin on the way to my grandmother’s farm. The region’s unique rock outcroppings are visible in the background. The trees depicted have thick trunks and delicate branches, which spread open to reveal explosions of green leaves. The artist’s love for this place is evident in his careful placement of buildings and in the elegantly winding road that curves through the composition. The straight-edged roof and wooden boards of the farmhouse are articulated in

Many years after moving away, Paul Seifert painted this scene of his own homestead near Bogus Bluff from memory.

WHS Archives #PH4204/WHI Image ID 49512. Gift of Mrs. Nelson Bennett and sons

1

precise linear strokes, and light blue curtains appear through its tiny windows. Flowers—illustrated by careful dots of orange and red—line the front of the home, indicating that the artist knew which types had taken root that spring. Looking at this painting, I feel as if I can smell the pastures and taste the crisp morning air enveloping the bluffs in the distance. This artwork was created by Paul Seifert (1846–1921), and it depicts his home nestled among the bluffs of southwestern Wisconsin. A German immigrant, Seifert settled in Richland City in 1867 and worked there as a gardener and taxidermist. He enjoyed painting and often took to the countryside with his sketchbook. He likely walked from one farm to the next, drawing neat homesteads set against wide skies and empty plains, and later sold the results of his work to the farms’ owners. Generations later, the paintings commemorate these farms, some of which have been owned and enjoyed by one family over several generations. Seifert’s farm paintings offer us an idealized glimpse of historic farm life presented from a rural American immigrant perspective that is often ignored in discourses of modern art history. There is an unfortunate tendency in today’s art world to refer to Seifert as an outsider or someone on the edges of society. The trend of art historians claiming to have “rescued” artists like Seifert from the bowels of history is akin to the nineteenth-century paradigm of white, male historians and ethnographers claiming to have “discovered” non-Western cultures. In her essay “Rebels, Mystics, and Outcasts” in The Artist Outsider, curator Joanne Cubbs outlines how, in many ways, Romanticism—the major intellectual and popular movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—is the root cause of this tendency to marginalize and sentimentalize the work of non-academically recognized “outsider” artists.1 During the Romantic Movement, people saw artists as rebels and societal outcasts who used their imaginations to transform the mundane everyday world into something more beautiful. In his 1967 essay “Paul Seifert: A Wisconsin Pioneer Artist,” author Richard Huff offers a romanticized description of Seifert as a self-taught itinerant artist who roamed the countryside, sharing his art with farmers and only sometimes being paid for his work. While Huff admires Seifert’s technical painting skills, the author also suggests that children enjoy Seifert’s art because his paintings are “childlike in their vision.”2 Other writers have intimated that the artist painted to support a drinking habit, though Seifert’s granddaughter Norma said she never saw liquor or tobacco in her grandparents’ house.3 A husband, father, gardener, taxidermist, painter, and amateur archaeologist, Seifert was dedicated to hard work. He was not merely a wandering outcast or idyllic “Sunday painter.” He spent over fifty years creating portraits of Wisconsin, drawing maps, collecting American Indian artifacts, and farming the land. His art demands attention, and the 2

WISCONSIN IN WATERCOLOR

current scholarship about him evidences the need for new ways of thinking about rural artists beyond this romantic framework. While we can appreciate Seifert’s farm paintings as works of art, we can also consider them as objects of exchange. Other late-nineteenth-century artists practiced a similar form of art bartering. The architectural artist Herman Markert, who moved from Germany to Pennsylvania around 1837, made a living drawing farms, houses, properties, and livestock. He took a pictorial inventory of everything the property holder owned, from animals to outbuildings, and the art was faithful to the subject in the extreme. In his work titled “View of the Residence of Mrs. D. H. Kelly, Buffalo Township, Union County, Penn’s,” we see an additional note—“Specially drawn for James B. Kelly by Herman Markert, Decbr. 1879”—indicating the importance of exactitude as a marker of ownership. 4 Markert’s drawings were heirlooms, intended to celebrate the achievements of families, mark changes to property, and memorialize land ownership.

The Property of Jacob G. and Hannah Hertzog, 1881 (cat. no. 10) by Ferdinand Brader. Photograph by Eric W. Baumgartner, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York

Introduction

3

Similarly, Swiss emigrant Ferdinand A. Brader, who arrived in Pennsylvania in the early 1870s, made his living selling paintings of farms and other scenes including infirmaries, railroad stations, gristmills, mines, and quarries. Like Seifert and Markert, Brader typically inscribed his works with the name of the property owner or resident, the date, and, in many cases, its number in the chronology of his completed works, which tally to at least nine hundred. Many of Brader’s works have been passed down through generations, and Canton Museum of Art executive director Max Barton notes that they “remain a source of pride, and history, for the owners.”5 Seifert’s work can be differentiated from his contemporaries’ by his exquisite ability as a colorist. His interest in color coupled with the growing demand for farm images inspired Seifert’s continual practice. While we do not know the exact number of his completed works, we are fairly sure that from approximately 1878 to 1915—the range from his earliest known work to the latest—Seifert periodically packed his canvas bag with paper and paints and set off in search of farmers willing to pay around $2.50 for a painting of their farmstead. Seifert painted as an insider, deeply connected to and fascinated by the land he made his home. His works accurately depict structures, animals, and landscape elements, yet they lack rigid adherence to perspective. It remains unclear at this time how much formal art training he had, if any. Artworks created by Seifert’s contemporaries in Germany and northern Europe vary in subject matter, materials, and theme but are generally recognizable by their attentiveness to detail and undertones of morality. Landscapes, like Seifert’s, and history paintings are also typical of the period. Seifert offers quaint, clean, and tidy images that avoid the hardships of the small nineteenth-century farm. In his works, we do not see weathered faces on people with calloused hands or torn clothing. Nor do we have a sense of the farmers’ long work days spent tilling the earth, caring for animals, and sustaining their families. Seifert’s farms are idealized keepsakes created for the enjoyment of his farm-owner customers. Although his works are romanticized, they record the land as he saw it. His works are similar to his northern European contemporaries’ in that they are detailed landscapes, yet they also reify the dominant narrative of nineteenth-century American painting, which establishes American identity as deeply tied to the land. Additionally, the technological advances of the nineteenth century, which brought an end to the isolation of rural life, are significant inclusions in Seifert’s later works. Like Seifert, German immigrant artist Ernest Hüpeden, who arrived in the southwestern part of the state in Valton, Wisconsin, in 1897, attended to these technological changes. Hüpeden also practiced a form of art bartering and would exchange paintings for lodging and meals. He frequently painted on objects—bottles, plates, and furniture, as well as on the walls of attics, workshops, and barns—rather than on paper. His most well4

WISCONSIN IN WATERCOLOR

known work in Wisconsin, The Painted Forest, is located on the walls of Modern Woodmen Camp 6190, a Modern Woodmen of America camp hall in Valton, Wisconsin. Artist and gallerist Paul Baker Prindle notes that the murals illustrate secret fraternal rituals while “imaging a Valton of the future” and that many Wisconsinites feel a familiarity with the values and ideas communicated in Hüpeden’s murals as “shared memories of our parents and grandparents.”6 As Seifert’s works spark my memories of my grandmother, Hüpeden’s work suggests an intimacy with the land that can be recognized by many generations. Seifert and Hüpeden were not engaged in the same cosmopolitan-centric critiques of art as the Modernist artists, whose works conveyed a sense of the world’s impermanence and an awareness of a constantly shifting reality. However, Seifert’s detailed depictions of changing farm equipment evidence his interest in the modernization phenomenon. Rather than depicting changing urban centers, as did the famous French painters of the

The Burch-Bolden family homestead by Ernest Hüpeden. WHS Museum Collection #2009.45.1/WHI Image ID 90252. Donated by Marritta Hager-Dummer in memory of Shirley (Parrish) Hager, Irene (Burch) Parrish, and John and Blanche Burch

Introduction

5

time, Seifert was observing rural communities and documenting the modernization of Wisconsin’s farms using his own artistic style. He presented idealized images conveying landowners’ feelings of pride and reflecting the results of their hard labor. Hüpeden, too, depicts this rural modernization. His work The Valley Where the Bluebirds Sing offers a rolling green paradise where a quaint white farmhouse nestles between tilled fields and meticulously maintained fences. The works of both Seifert and Hüpeden evidence, as author Lisa Stone notes, “satisfied people who settled the land, giving them tangible expressions of their hard work, the transformation of owned property into idealized landscapes that express their ideals. No sense of the incessant toil of farm work is conveyed, only the result, captured in rare—perhaps impossible—perfect moments.”7 We can call this type of work outsider art, but there is no evidence to prove or disprove Seifert’s academic training. We can call this vernacular art because of its relevance within the Driftless Area, but we can also consider it a kind of “rural modernism” that reflects the rapidly changing landscape of farming—an issue that continues to be of great significance to Wisconsinites. Seifert, Hüpeden, and other rural farm painters are not outsiders. Quite the opposite, they are necessarily enmeshed and engaged in their communities. As I watched southwestern Wisconsin farmers browse the exhibit of Seifert’s works at the Wisconsin Historical Museum in Madison during the summer of 2014, I could see the art conjuring memories of the land that echoed my own experience of viewing these paintings. In the exhibit space, I was reminded of times spent swinging over piles of hay with my brothers, our laughter echoing through the rafters, or speeding up and down hilly country roads with my family, flying past miles of cornstalks on our way to my grandparents’ farm. My grandparents, the cows, and the potato fields, which had faded from my thoughts, were renewed there in front of me in vivid color. A man with heavily callused hands, thumbs hooked inside the pockets of his worn jeans, passed me and called his companion over to fondly reminisce about a farmstead their grandmother had lived on. Seifert’s idyllic visions—his miniature animals, whimsical clouds, and tidy homes—bring us comfort. I am grateful that his works survive. Now housed in both private and museum collections, Seifert’s paintings are treasured for their detailed representations of the Driftless Area—a place where the land continues to be tied to identity. Through these watercolors, Paul Seifert has left us his unique vision of a landscape that ignited his creative passions and that continues to shape our memories and lives today.

Sarah Stolte University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2018 6

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UNDERSTANDING PAUL SEIFERT

Just fifteen minutes to sit down and chat with Paul Seifert. That’s all I would want. Fifteen minutes to seek the answers I have been chasing for the last fifteen years, since I saw a photo of one of his curious farm scenes and read what little has been written of his story. If I could, I would beg his indulgence: Why did you move from Germany to the United States, leaving behind your family and your world? And how did you end up at an isolated outpost along the Wisconsin River? However, I would really want to ask him about his art: Why did you create so many watercolor paintings of farms in your rural neighborhood? How did you find the subjects? Did they find you? And why did you paint them from that distinctive bird’s-eye perspective?

This is the Paul Seifert I’d like to talk to—an older man, whose tired eyes have seen a lot and whose rugged hands have rendered much. Courtesy of Andrew H. Cockroft

7

I want these answers because Seifert’s paintings beg the questions. They are compelling and expressive, yet simple and approachable. And for someone like me—who has had graduate training in both American history and material culture studies, and spent much of my career examining cultural history—the mysteries surrounding Paul Seifert make him an incredibly enticing subject. Over the years, I’ve been asked these same questions about Seifert many times, by art and history lovers from Wisconsin and around the country. I’ve scoured the documentary record of local newspapers and community histories but, unfortunately, have found very little. Historians like me spend their careers attempting the impossible—to go back in time. We get close when we uncover the document that unravels a mystery, the image that puts a face to a story, or the artifact that frames a subject in a whole new light. When we make these sorts of discoveries, we feel as if we know people from the past because we can look into their eyes, hold on to their life’s work, or read their innermost thoughts. But even if I could communicate with Seifert, I’m not sure he’d provide the answers I desperately seek. Evidence suggests that Seifert could be less than truthful when telling his own story. What follows is my attempt to showcase a number of Seifert’s best farm paintings and share what I’ve been able to discover about his life, his legend, the people and landscapes he depicted, and what his paintings say about his Wisconsin experience. Over the decades, other art historians have tried to do the same in bits and pieces. But the paintings are not easily located, as they are tucked away in homes and scattered about the country in private collections, and Seifert’s story is not easily established because there is almost no contemporary documentation regarding his creative endeavors. Yet, we still search. We seek meaning and identity. We seek to label and classify him and his works. Whose history is it? Who gets to claim Paul Seifert? The scholar from far away, who has the contextual knowledge to see that he is an American treasure? The collector who admires beautiful art? Or the descendants of his family, neighbors, and friends who live on the lands that he rendered long ago? After fifteen years of research spent traversing Driftless Area roads, visiting farms, and meeting many painting owners, descendants, and fellow Seifert enthusiasts, I’m able to offer for the first time a broad examination of Paul Seifert’s story, legends, and artistic contributions. Twenty-two paintings are presented here out of about fifty-five known Seifert watercolors. Individually, each painting stands alone—some feature vivid color palettes, others include intriguing details, and several are in incredible condition given their fragile nature. Collectively, they showcase the rural life of a naturally beautiful Midwestern region. The paintings’ detailed scenes also provide modern viewers the opportunity to 8

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investigate and explore both the nature of historic farming in Wisconsin and the lives of the subjects Seifert depicted. Though Paul Seifert’s art is sometimes considered primitive or simplistic, the deficiencies in his technique are more than offset by his contribution to Wisconsin history, art, and culture. His watercolors depict real places where real people lived and farmed, and, in many cases, where real people live and farm today. They also provide a new angle of inquiry for art and history lovers alike. More visual than a writer’s journal, more evocative than a photographer’s picture, and more moving than a census taker’s hard data, Paul Seifert’s art is an intriguing and illuminating window into a bygone era of Wisconsin’s rural life.

Paul Seifert, ca. 1885, when he made most of his farm paintings. WHI Image ID 75628

Understanding Paul Seifert

9

Iowa County Treasures

Paul Seifert’s best farm paintings are generally considered those with lavish detail, meticulous articulation of scene elements, varied use of paints and inks, and informative inscriptions. The following three paintings of northeastern Iowa County farms include all of these components and represent Seifert’s most complete works, providing an excellent introduction to his art.

Detail of a home, horse, and sleigh from the painting of the E. R. Jones farm (see pages 16–17).

11

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This painting of Leonidas Richardson’s farm features precisely rendered stone foundations and tree branches in the far distance composed of minute brushstrokes. Seifert utilized a blue-green palette for the natural landscape and numerous colors for the farm, fields, livestock, and roads. He had trouble rendering complex natural elements, evidenced here by his depiction of a creek in the foreground. The waterway resembles a flat blue ribbon rather than a meandering, three-dimensional creek. The red inscription, unlike most of Seifert’s penciled inscriptions, is easy to read.

Residence of Mr L Richardson 1880. Private Collection

Iowa Count y Tre asures

13

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WISCONSIN IN WATERCOLOR

This painting probably contains the most applied color of all of Seifert’s farm paintings—the vivid scene is bursting with life. The many fine details—such as the iron treads on the wheels of the horse-drawn mower, the blade of the farmer’s scythe, and the branches of the evergreen trees—make this painting so appealing. Seifert utilized a significant amount of red paint and ink to highlight small details (such as the wagon wheels and chimneys) as well as major compositional elements (such as the clouds and the bold inscription at bottom). This painting received major conservation treatment to remove staining and burns from acids that migrated from the backing wood to the paper, a form of deterioration commonly seen in Seifert’s watercolors.

Residence of Mr Daniel Lewis. Town Dodgville [sic]. Iowa Co. Wis. 1881. WHS Archives #PH4204/WHI Image ID 49511

Iowa Count y Tre asures

15

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One of two known winter scenes by Seifert, this rendering of the Jones farm has been included in numerous art history publications over the decades. He depicts an early snowstorm in which almost all of the deciduous trees still bear their brilliant fall colors. The reddish-orange leaves of the native white oak visible throughout the scene can hold their leaves into winter, but the bright yellow leaves of the common sugar maple typically drop before the first snow. The result is a beautiful mix of snow-covered land, bright foliage, and a soft blue sky, with a classic red barn in the center. This painting and the Daniel Lewis farm scene (see pages 14–15) bear a similar red inscription and arced treatment of the sky. Since the farms are both in northeastern Iowa County and the paintings share the same date, it’s likely that Seifert sketched both scenes on the same outing and painted them at the same time. The three vertical lines are acid burns where acid from the backing boards seeped into the adjacent paper. This painting was evidently backed by three boards of similar size, and a knot burn is visible at upper right.

Residence of Mr E. R. Jones. Town Dodgeville, Wis. 1881. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, Gift of Stephen C. Clark, Jean and Howard Lipman Collection, N0222.1961. Photograph by Richard Walker.

Iowa Count y Tre asures

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EXPLORING THE LEGENDS

What can be confirmed of Paul Seifert’s life in Wisconsin is fairly basic. He arrived late in 1867, after leaving his parents in Dresden in the Kingdom of Saxony, which later became part of a unified Germany. He made his new home in Richland City, along the Wisconsin River in southeastern Richland County, but it is not known for certain who he first met or where he first lived. The following year, he married Elizabeth Kraft, the daughter of German immigrants, and they quickly started a family. The Seiferts lived modestly, grew lush gardens, and sold their produce in town. Later, Seifert established a taxidermy practice, and he also made and sold paintings on glass. He was an avid relic hunter who became acquainted with professional archaeologists and joined the Wisconsin Archeological Society. He and Elizabeth lived in several residences in the vicinity of Richland City and Gotham during their fifty-three years together. The more detailed stories about Seifert are grander, more dramatic, and almost impossible to substantiate. The lore comes from local legends passed down through the generations, newspaper articles published after his death, and the reminiscences of his granddaughters decades after his passing. Taken together, these unconfirmed stories paint quite a picture of Seifert. He is described as having come from Austria or Switzerland, and being born to an aristocratic family that possessed considerable wealth. Some sources claim that he was fond of tall tales and whiskey; others suggest that he fled compulsory military service in his homeland and later discovered wondrous archaeological treasures in Wisconsin. Even Seifert’s arrival in Richland City is dramatic in some accounts, as he supposedly jumped off a passing logging raft, swam to shore, and immediately met his future wife. As newspaper articles about him began to appear in 1923 (two years after his death), the mere act of publication likely converted the lore into what some trusted as fact. These early descriptions of Seifert consistently portrayed him as a colorful and somewhat artistic German who practiced taxidermy and was somehow linked to nearby caves filled with counterfeit money, ancient relics, and human remains. 19

Paul and Elizabeth Seifert in

their Gotham home amongst their collectibles and Paul’s

taxidermy specimens, 1908. WHI Image ID 75711

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Conversely, about a dozen earlier newspaper accounts depict Seifert’s life as simple, almost mundane. They note the minutest events of his daily life, such as visits to town and the quality of his tomato crop, but curiously make no mention of his paintings or interactions with farmers throughout the area.8 He does not appear in contemporary published Richland County histories, and even his 1921 obituary fails to mention the farm paintings specifically.9 The first known published mention of Seifert’s farm scenes is in a 1923 article about the Bogus Bluff caves in The Wisconsin Magazine. Bogus Bluff rises over two hundred feet above the Wisconsin River downstream from Richland City and has numerous caves long rumored to house looted treasures and illegal counterfeiting operations. The article chronicled these purported illicit activities during the 1800s. Seifert lived near the bluff on a homestead from 1871 to the late 1880s and was suspected of possible participation in these acts. Apparently, he came under suspicion because he frequently purchased tubes of Green #2 paint, which was a prominent color in most of his farm paintings.10 The author lists Seifert as a suspected counterfeiter but briefly notes that “to pass the time he painted pictures for the farmers.”11 Later articles focused on Seifert’s link to an even more dramatic Bogus Bluff cave story about the mysterious Caves of the Dead, which were rumored to hold incredible amounts of ancient relics and the remains of an extinct race. According to this account, only Seifert knew of its existence, and it became the story that made him famous after his death. Though several articles in the 1920s and 1930s covered the Bogus Bluff stories, it wasn’t until 1950 that Seifert’s farm paintings started to receive attention. A folk art scholar from New York State, Jean Lipman, “discovered” his paintings in the late 1940s and included him as one of the sixteen featured artists in her anthology of American primitive painters. Artists are typically described as primitive if they are not formally trained and if their work appears to lack skilled technique or aesthetic merit. Nonetheless, Lipman was the first to publish the story of Seifert as an artist. Lipman also included extensive quotes from letters written by Seifert’s granddaughters (who, unfortunately, go unnamed) in her book, which became the foundation for all future oral accounts and published interpretations of Paul Seifert. Here is an excerpt from Primitive Painters in America: 1750–1950, in which Lipman directly quotes the granddaughters’ letters: Paul A. Seifert was born June 11, 1840 in Dresden, Germany. He graduated from Leipsig

college [sic]. Paul’s early life in Germany, as much as we can gather from what he told us and his papers, was a life of wealth. His father was called Dr. Seifert—we have his

picture and he was very distinguished looking. Then to further bear out this statement Exploring the Legends

21

The Caves of the Dead In 1922, one year after Paul Seifert’s death, founder of the Wisconsin Archeological Society Charles Brown received a letter containing a lengthy and most peculiar story handwritten by Seifert. The sender was one of Seifert’s acquaintances from Milwaukee, and the story was, purportedly, Seifert’s translation of an essay written by an Austrian baron who was Seifert’s onetime schoolmate. The translation covers ten pages, but even the distilled version is quite the saga. The baron, whose name is listed only as S.v.W., meets Paul Seifert and his older brother at the University in Leipzig. The Seifert brothers are sons of a Saxon aristocrat, and the three men become friends. All three go off to fight in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, and Paul is captured. In 1887, the baron unexpectedly receives a letter from Paul explaining that he escaped, fled to America, and lives in Wisconsin. When the baron explains that he is an

Milwaukee Journal, March 13, 1927.

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archaeologist, Paul begins to send him packages of amazing specimens, telling stories of an incredible treasure trove hidden in a cave near his home. Years later, the baron receives a letter from Elizabeth Seifert encouraging him to come quickly if he wants to see the cave, as Paul is ailing. The baron immediately travels to meet Paul, and they make an epic journey in the dark of night to reach the trove deep within Bogus Bluff. The baron is astonished by the magnitude of the find. “Skulls everywhere,” he wrote. “Here perished a tribe, very near shall I say, a nation.” The next morning, on his return voyage to Austria, the baron proclaims that he will never forget “that terrible journey to the ‘Caves of the Dead,’ under the Bluff of the old Wisconsin.” The manuscript is signed “S.v.W.” A note at the bottom in different handwriting reads, “Translated from the German by P.A.S.”1 We don’t know when the essay was first published, but a few years after Charles Brown received it, the Milwaukee Journal concluded that it was likely a colorful embellishment or perhaps a joke.2 Subsequent newspaper articles included new details such as the author’s last name, S. von Wolfgang, and claims that the entire story was previously printed in the Vienna Courier. 3 We don’t know where this new information came from, but it gave the story enough credence that writers revisited the legend many times in the following decades. 1. WHS Mss HB, box 37. 2. “Hoax or Treasure Trove?,” Milwaukee Journal (first-run feature), March 13, 1927. 3. It does not appear that a newspaper with this name existed in Austria until the Wiener Kurier (Vienna Courier) was established in 1945 by the American occupying forces in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

of wealth, sums of money fine linens and jewelry were sent to my grandfather from his parents.

Because Paul disliked the military training in his country, he ran away and came to

America in 1867. At that time, men traveled on rafts on the Wisconsin River bringing logs from the north country. Paul Seifert came down the river on one of the rafts and

stopped at a small village called Richland City. Laurence Kraft was the only resident who spoke the German language and my grandfather soon gained his friendship and later married his daughter, Elizabeth Kraft.

Exploring the Legends

23

At this time, Paul Seifert started his life work; for an occupation he raised flowers,

small fruits, and vegetables, but as a hobby, he did the painting you wrote about in your letter, watercolor farm scenes. The natural resources of the country were very abundant at that time so he and his wife and four children lived a simple life in a log cabin.

In later life, he set up a shop near Gotham, where he practiced his art of painting and

taxidermy. Besides the watercolor work, he did oil painting on glass. These were castle scenes, as he remembered them in his native land. He died in 1921.12

After Lipman’s book was published in 1950, Seifert’s identity evolved from local legend into that of local legend and unappreciated folk artist. The sheer grandeur of the cave stories ensured that they would continue to be retold. From the 1950s to the 1990s, newspaper writers and art historians didn’t actively attempt to authenticate the lore. The cave legends, they probably assumed, made for a more interesting story than whatever the truth might be. Headlines included “Legacy of Art and Mystery” and “Search Goes on for Paintings and Legendary Cave of Artist.” In 1994, amateur historian William F. Stark refocused the public’s attention on Seifert as an artist when he wrote in Wisconsin Trails about his first encounter with a Seifert painting and the accompanying lore: It was more than 30 years ago [ca. 1960] when I first stumbled across the trail of Paul

Seifert. I’d stopped for ice and supplies in the Wisconsin River village of Blue River during a summer canoe trip. As the bartender assembled my order, I noticed a large

colorful painting of a farm scene hanging on the wall behind the bar—a watercolor done in a primitive style. “Is that a Grandma Moses?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “My father told me it was painted by a German farmer who lived somewhere in the area years ago and often swapped his pictures for whiskey.” The bartender grinned. “He was supposed to have been a colorful old geezer. Both he and my father are long gone.”13

In preparation for his article, Stark consulted one of Seifert’s granddaughters, Norma Dye Beckman, who apparently added detail to the colorful account of Seifert’s arrival story. Stark wrote, Something about the town must have struck Seifert because as his raft drifted past Gotham [what would then have been Richland City], the young German leaped into

the river and headed for the shore. There were several girls watching as he swam into

the shallows and dragged himself up on the river bank. One of them was 16-year-old

Elizabeth Craft [sic], daughter of Gotham’s only German-speaking residents. She and 24

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Seifert married within the year. “He looked like a drowned rat,” said Norma, quoting her grandmother.14

My job as a historian is not to rehash old tales, but to find facts and explore context in order to provide clarity. Doing so can debunk long-held myths, which is generally a good thing. But historical research can also render a colorful character much less colorful. As seen in Stark’s article, post-1950 treatments of Seifert built upon existing nuggets of information, often accepting them at face value. I will attempt to present a more documentable and accurate account of Paul Seifert, the person.

Exploring the Legends

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Revealing Inscriptions

Fewer than twenty of Seifert’s known farm paintings include inscriptions, but those that do provide another angle from which historians can explore the artist and his work. Besides identifying the who, what, where, and when of each scene, inscriptions reveal the ethnicity of the local farmers and the importance of calling attention to the families who lived on the farms.

Detail of the inscription from the painting of the Halvor Ellefson farm (see pages 28–29). 27

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This is the earliest known farm painting by Paul Seifert and his only known painting of a Norwegian family farm. Because Seifert primarily painted the farms of his German and English/American neighbors, it’s notable that his first painting was quite possibly created for a Norwegian family that lived fifteen miles away in Big Hollow of neighboring Sauk County. The stylish inscription contains a mix of Norwegian and English; Gaard [sic] (or Gård) means farm, and Nord means north. German was Seifert’s first language and he adopted English once arriving in Wisconsin, so he may have been trying to appease Mr. Ellefson or to communicate something about the family’s ethnic identity by including the Norwegian. The larger-than-life flag and pole in the distance may have been another attempt to represent an identity. This painting is one of two known paintings to contain this type of flag, and its presence is conspicuous. The flag contains three horizontal fields: blue, white, and a third, faded color that could have been red, which fades easily. There appears to be a field of stars in the upper left corner similar to that on the American flag, but the style and colors do not resemble American or Norwegian flags from the time period. While the flag may have been intended to depict an immigrant identity, its meaning remains a mystery. To the left of the flag, a hunter fires at a white-tailed deer. In the foreground, two farmers haul away a load of freshly cut hay—a compositional element that would become a regular and expanded feature in Seifert’s later farm scenes.

Gaard af Halvor Ellefson. Sauk Co. Wis: Nord. Amer. 1878. Private Collection

Reve aling Inscriptions

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This is the second-oldest known farm painting by Paul Seifert and the only one to include his signature, which matches signatures on his correspondence. Consequently, this painting is the key that authenticates all other Seifert works attributed to him using visual characteristics. The highly lavish style of the inscription is unique for Seifert. He inscribed other paintings cleanly and minimally, with pencil or ink, almost in an architect’s style. Perhaps this painting was very important to him or Lemuel Cooper. This farm is highly detailed, and the hay harvesting scene is more complete than the one in the Ellefson painting (see previous pages): the horseman at far left rakes the cut hay into rows while the man with a pitchfork pushes the rows into piles to be heaved into the flatbed wagon, currently carrying a full load. In the immediate foreground, a hunter fires on a grouse that has been flushed by the dog. At top right, Seifert includes another towering flag and pole, as he did in the Ellefson scene. This farm and road still exist, so it can be determined that the view is to the east— away from the location of the Ellefson farm several miles to the west. The Ellefson and Cooper paintings are not two views of the same flag, and it seems unlikely that two large flags were planted high on hills in Sauk County. Why Seifert included the flags in these paintings is unknown.

Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879 Sauk County Courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum

Reve aling Inscriptions

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Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis. Ca. 1890 Courtesy of David Wheatcroft

This painting’s inscription includes a mix of German and English. Seifert uses von, German for of, and the German spelling of the farmer’s name, Jakob. Perhaps Seifert knew the Huber family personally and they spoke in a mix of German and English. Seifert must have visited the Honey Creek area often, as he made at least six paintings of mostly Germanspeaking family farms in the area. On closer inspection, the road signpost at right center appears to have been added to the composition later—perhaps by a Huber descendant. At far left, Seifert depicted both a hops yard and the base of a large limestone outcropping—two distinctive elements of the area’s cultural and natural landscapes.

In the lower left corner of the Huber painting, Seifert shows

a man operating a horse-drawn dump rake. This photograph

from 1902 shows men using a dump rake to collect cut hay into rows, which will then be pushed into piles to be forked on to the wagon.

WHI Image ID 91948

Reve aling Inscriptions

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Seifert’s inscription on this Baumgarth farm painting also includes a mix of German and English, perhaps for the same reasons that the Huber farm painting does. However, this is the only known Seifert inscription that does not include the first name of the head of the household. There were only two Baumgarth families living in the Town of Troy during the late 1800s. This is most likely the farm of Gustave Baumgarth, who died in 1877. The Agricultural Schedule for 1880 notes that Gustave’s sons Carl and Henry rented the farm. Perhaps the family no longer owned the land or there was no clear male head of household; Gustave’s wife, Pauline, lived until 1888. Seifert also painted the other Baumgarth family farm, which belonged to Gustave’s eldest son, Ferdinand (see pages 76–77). The structure at far left is unlike any other rendered by Seifert. It’s not a tall silo—these did not appear in Wisconsin until the late 1890s. Rather, this building is likely a hop house or kiln, used for drying hop flowers for brewing. Sauk County experienced a massive hops boom and bust in the late 1860s, but agricultural census data shows that many Town of Troy farmers still grew the crop in small hop yards like the one seen here at lower left. In this scene, the hop house appears very large, but the structures were typically only two stories. Upon close inspection, this hop house is actually two stories tall, but Seifert’s inability to accurately depict proportions gives the impression that the structure is significantly larger than the house.

Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis. Ca. 1885 Private Collection

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Paul Seifert as a young man in

Tharandt, Kingdom of Saxony, Germany, shortly before departing for America. WHI Image ID 109109

SEEKING THE TRUTH

Recently, descendants and fans of Seifert have conducted their own research, and twenty-first-century access to global information has yielded significant documents related to his life and family in Germany. His birth year has often been published as 1840, but his birth records and a newspaper announcement recently obtained by enthusiasts prove that he was born in Dresden on June 11, 1846. He was not born into a wealthy aristocratic family; the Seiferts had a lower-middle-class status given his father’s position as a schoolteacher. They did not live on a private estate, but resided on the grounds of the Freimauer Institut (Masonic Institute) in Dresden, where his father taught and Paul attended. He was an only child with no older brother, and he did not attend the University of Leipzig, though his father did. For two years, Paul attended the Forstakademie (Forestry Academy) in Tharandt, Saxony, and he graduated in the summer of 1867. No records have been found confirming his military service. This information discredits much of what was written about the Caves of the Dead and shows that Seifert’s granddaughters also had incorrect information or mistaken memories. Folk art scholar Jean Lipman corresponded with them nearly thirty years after Seifert’s death, and they noted that their only personal contact with him was when he was elderly.15 Their responses, thus, were more likely memories of their mother’s stories about Seifert’s life. The recent discoveries suggest that Seifert had a comfortable upbringing in Dresden, which raises questions about his departure. Certainly, the political upheaval and frequent warring in the region could have prompted him to leave, and the prospect of escaping military service may have appealed to him. In any event, just ten weeks after his graduation from the Forestry Academy, the ship’s register for the Eugenie showed that Paul A. Seifert was a passenger, departing from Hamburg on September 16, 1867, and arriving in New York on November 2. Arrival documentation lists him as a farmer, and all questions regarding his destination and plans in America were answered “unknown.” Perhaps language barriers complicated his responses, or maybe he truly had no formal plans. 37

Seifert’s route from New York to Wisconsin is unknown, but in 1867 he likely would have traveled via water or train to Milwaukee. From there, perhaps the train took him to Portage, where he could have hopped a ride on a logging raft headed downstream. But if it was late in 1867, it’s unlikely that rafts would still be running given cold water and potentially icy conditions. Or maybe he came by train; the Prairie du Chien branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad had a depot just upstream from Richland City at Lone Rock. And then there’s the detail about his bride-to-be. The 1870 census suggests that several German-speaking families lived in Richland City in 1867, which could explain Seifert’s introduction to Elizabeth. Odds are slim, however, that he would have jumped into the river—in December—with everything he possessed as a stranger in a foreign land, from travel papers and currency to clothing. We can reasonably assume that the entire Caves of the Dead story is fiction. 16 Seifert certainly collected, sold, and later donated many American Indian artifacts, but they likely came from the land and burial mounds surrounding Richland City. Huge portions of the town were washed away by the eroding currents of the Wisconsin River during the late 1800s, and he probably found many artifacts in the layers of soil exposed by the river. Still, the document itself is fascinating. The handwriting appears to be Seifert’s, but the style is far more eloquent and free of the spelling and grammatical errors we find in his other writings. The essay supposedly written by the baron contains detailed information about Seifert that is factually correct, but it also contains elements of the mythology that we can disprove with new evidence. Seifert wrote at least twenty-five letters to archaeologist Charles Brown between 1903 (the year Seifert became a member of the Wisconsin Archeological Society) and 1919.17 Though they met often, and Seifert even gave Brown boxes of artifacts that he and Elizabeth collected, it’s quite perplexing that he would not mention one of the greatest archaeological finds on the entire continent.18 Is this document the source for much of the lore surrounding Seifert’s origin story? Did he actually tell tall tales while he was alive, or did this document, and the reasonable assumption that he was behind it, create the perception that he was a fibber after his death? Did this document influence the stories passed down by family and friends over the years, and did it color the granddaughters’ knowledge? We can be reasonably certain that Paul Seifert was the source of some of the counterfeiting legends. A longtime editor of a local newspaper recalled, “Many a story of Bogus Bluff and the counterfeiters could [Seifert] spin.”19 But if Seifert was indeed the primary—or even sole—source of the Caves of the Dead tale, what was the point? Was he creating documentation to provide proof of an impressive upbringing, war heroism, and 38

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the discovery of archaeological treasures to impress his collector colleagues? Regardless, he could never have imagined that one hundred years later, researchers and historians like me would have the ability to unearth documentary evidence of his actual past.

The Disappearance of Richland City Paul Seifert’s adopted home town of Richland City was established in 1849 on the north bank of the Wisconsin River, where it met the Pine River. The town grew to considerable size with more than five hundred residents by the 1880s. For over a decade, it was the most important commercial port between Portage and Prairie du Chien.1 But when the railroad connecting Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien was completed in 1857, the line (which ran along the south shore of the Wisconsin River) bypassed Richland City. Without a bridge connecting the city to the south shore, Richland City’s importance began to diminish. In the early 1860s, the shifting river began cutting away at the sandy soil of the valley floor. Over decades, entire blocks of Richland City washed away. When a second rail line—this one traveling from Lone Rock to Richland Center—bypassed Richland City in 1876, most residents moved to higher ground near the rail line, and by the 1920s, Richland City was essentially abandoned. Many former Richland City residents moved their homes or built new ones near the newer railroad, and the emerging village needed a name. A deadly storm far away on Lake Erie provided inspiration. On November 23, 1902, Captain Myron Gotham and two of his sons perished when a powerful gale sunk the Sylvanus J. Macy just off Port Burwell, Ontario. During the shipping season, Gotham piloted bulk freighters on the Great Lakes, and he resided near Richland City during the winter. Local residents honored the tragic deaths of the three Gotham family members by naming the growing town after them. Today, some of Richland City’s former streets remain on the land, as do some structures, but few people are aware that a small city previously existed there. A handful of photographs and a plat map document the vanished place, but they do not provide much detail. Fortunately, Paul Seifert and his neighbor Elijah Stiles created an illustrated map in 1903. Using his signature green and brown watercolors, Seifert rendered his neighborhood in colorful detail, and the result is a fascinating mix of city plat map, topographical survey, and archaeological field report covering many eras.

Seeking the Truth

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The map documents the transformation of the land as Seifert and Stiles remembered it. They illustrated the river’s northward migration as the current scoured away the streets and city blocks. They outlined individual properties and residences and some of the local landmarks, including what appears to be a racetrack for horses. The map also depicts American Indian burial and effigy mound sites and locations where pottery and human skeletons were found within the mounds. Humans inhabited the confluence of the Pine and Wisconsin Rivers for thousands of years before the citizens of Richland City, and thus, the surrounding soil held many layers of archaeological materials. As the advancing river cut through the ground and mounds, it exposed artifacts—likely the same artifacts Seifert collected, gave to archaeologist Charles Brown, and donated to institutions such as the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Milwaukee Public Museum. Perhaps these discoveries also served as inspiration for the grand “Caves of the Dead” legend. In this map, Seifert and Stiles also attempt to locate previous paths of the Pine River and other ancient sites. Did they possess such an intimate knowledge of the land that they could make such determinations? Given the inaccuracies in Seifert’s background story and his struggles rendering in three dimensions, can the map be trusted or taken literally? I believe it can. The creation of the map required a different application of Seifert’s skills; his role was more illustrator than artist. Here, Seifert rendered in only two dimensions, and his map resembles typical plat maps from 1903. The brief notations are merely informational—they lack the embellishments of his background story—and the composition lacks the complexity of his farm paintings. Perhaps Seifert and Stiles foresaw that economic realities and forces of nature doomed Richland City, or perhaps they realized the importance of the location as a site of ancient peoples. Although Richland City has been lost to the powerful currents of the Wisconsin River, their map documents the city’s ancient and historical presence. 1. Dan Bomkamp, River of Mystery (Poynette, WI: Lovstad Publishing, 2014), 82.

Watercolor and ink map of Richland City, Wisconsin, prepared by Paul Seifert and Elijah H. Stiles, 1903.

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives

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Seeking the Truth

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Beyond Farm Scenes

Seifert is best known for his watercolor paintings of farms near his home along the Wisconsin River, but he made several paintings of other locales. These scenes provide another look into life in the Driftless Area long ago.

Detail of a boat from the painting of Law’s Landing (see pages 48–49). 43

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There are only three known Seifert watercolors that do not depict farms, and this richly colored painting is one. He uses a blue-green palette to depict a mill along a stream in the lush Helena Valley south of the Wisconsin River. Viewers may have difficulty distinguishing the water from the grass as it winds through the mill grounds in this complex scene. Historical imagery from the period reveals that Seifert compressed the scene; in actuality, the home was much farther away from the millhouse, and there were fewer trees. As he did in many of his scenes, Seifert included one hard-to-find detail in this painting—the man in the shadows peering out of the doorway at center left. It’s unlike any other depiction of a man that Seifert is known to have painted.

Helene [sic] Valley Mills. Town Wyoming Iowa Co Wis. 1880 Private Collection

Be yond Farm Scenes

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Seifert painted the growing village of Gotham as people moved there from nearby Richland City, which was being washed away by the Wisconsin River. In the foreground, he shows the railroad line that stretched between Lone Rock and Richland Center with Gotham’s tiny depot. The church and parsonage are visible at far right. This painting is also one of only two known winter scenes by Seifert—a fresh snowfall blankets all horizontal surfaces and roofs except for the moving train. The painted blue sky has faded, but the metallic clouds and sun still possess a shine, as metallic paints are more durable than watercolors. The view is to the northeast, but at this time of year the sun would rise considerably south of due east and not in the northerly location Seifert shows.

Gotham. 1893. Richland County Private Collection

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This is the only known Seifert painting to extensively feature a water scene, but oddly, he didn’t incorporate any blue paints. He likely never completed the work, given that he frequently utilized blue watercolors for his skies, and any sky treatment is completely absent here. Law’s Landing was located on the north side of the Wisconsin River a few miles from Gotham. Perhaps Seifert crossed the river here when venturing to Iowa County. Only a handful of his study sketches still exist today, and this scene is the only known match of a sketch and a finished painting (see pages 84–85). The scene documents multiple modes of transport— along the road a man waters his horse and what appears to be an automobile sits idle, indicating that this is a twentieth-century scene. In the river, Seifert details a pair of beached rowboats, a paddlewheel-powered boat heading downstream, and a motorboat pushing upstream. During his lifetime along the Wisconsin River, Seifert witnessed evolving modes of transportation that came with the development of the region, and his three nonfarm paintings capture those advancements very well.

Law’s Landing scene Richland County, ca. 1910 Private Collection

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VISION

If you’ve ever traveled along the lower Wisconsin River Valley in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, you know that the landscape is both geographically and visually distinctive. The river winds through a gorge several miles wide and tabletop-flat, occasionally bumping up against massive wooded bluffs with protruding outcroppings and stark exposures of ancient sandstone. If you’ve ventured away from the river and farther into northern Grant and Iowa Counties or southern Richland and Sauk Counties, you’ve noticed the elevation rise to reveal picturesque valleys populated by family farms and smooth, rounded hills thickly covered in hardwoods. I love this landscape and its peculiarities. Depending on which direction you’re looking, you may see a gorgeous farm unit, still at a twentieth-century family scale, or a dramatic wooded bluff with no sign of human intrusion. This mash-up of diverse landscapes and land uses makes the Driftless Area a special place. Of course, people with competing interests have disagreed over how best to use these natural resources. As Paul Seifert witnessed the emergence of major agricultural settlements in the region, he may have been both proud and wary. He and his neighbors, friends, and family were building lives and communities, but they were also changing a beautiful landscape. Seifert’s paintings are unique in that they portray the happy coexistence of farming families and precious natural landscapes. To accomplish such a heady task, he needed vision on two levels: one to execute the composition and another to depict the interdependence of nature and humans. Since Seifert left no written record of his thoughts about his art, his paintings must speak for him. They provide insight into how his mind worked, because he was not painting exactly what he saw—there are no natural vantage points for the perspectives shown in his scenes. He wasn’t climbing a nearby hill or piloting a hot air balloon to get a view from above. Rather, Seifert painted what he envisioned from an imaginary perspective high above the ground.

51

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Seifert may have been influenced by bird’s-eye-view

maps, detailed illustrations of towns and cities from an aerial perspective that became popular in the United

States starting in the 1850s. Many Wisconsin towns were depicted this way by the 1870s. Seifert’s paintings share

a similar perspective but are depicted from an imagined point closer to ground level. WHI Image ID 22694

Vision

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If you drive the county roads of the area, searching for the old farms and attempting to see what Seifert saw, you’ll be met with disappointment. I’ve tried. There is no “eureka” moment when you excitedly pop out of your car in front of a farm, seeing natural and human-made elements fit together just as Seifert rendered them in his paintings. In fact, you may see quite the opposite. The first farm painted by Seifert that I visited years ago was the Martin Luetscher site in the Town of Honey Creek in Sauk County. Luetscher’s fifth-generation descendant Peggy Luetscher Romenesko instructed me on just what to look for when driving west from Prairie du Sac along winding County PF. Sure enough, after the fourth sharp corner, the original home came into view, neatly tucked below a prominent limestone outcropping. But what I saw was not at all what I expected. When I judged that I was about as far away from the farm as Seifert would have been to create the painting, I pulled over and immediately turned around, looking for a hill. Where did he sit? I wondered. The ground

Seifert painted the Martin Luetscher farm from a perspective that could not be seen from the ground, and he neatly bundled all of the scene’s elements together.

WHS Museum #2005.182.1/WHI Image ID 41161. Gift of Peggy Luetscher Romenesko

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The view of the same farm from the ground-level perspective, 2013. Courtesy of Douglas Griffin

nearby is actually lower than the farm, as the elevation drops smoothly to Honey Creek one and a half miles to the south. As I studied the photo of the painting in my hands and scratched my head, it became abundantly clear that Seifert’s vision and imagination were the elements that made his paintings extraordinary, not simply his choice of paper and paint colors. After thoroughly examining his paintings, and making the corresponding site visits, I realized that Seifert consistently created a view that could never be seen from the ground. Certainly, he and his farm family customers knew what the land looked like around them, but Seifert chose to depict their hard work and successes within the context of the larger natural environment. Perhaps he wanted to show how man’s agricultural presence altered the landscape, but by painting from a wider, bird’s-eye view, he could also show that the natural beauty of the region still remained.

Vision

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Land and Rock Formations

The landscape of Paul Seifert’s world within the Driftless Area is marked by distinctive rock outcroppings set against wooded bluffs, and many of his paintings incorporate those natural landmarks in detail. Seifert spent much of his life outdoors, and he paid attention to the composition and character of both land and rock formations.

Detail of Tower Rock from the painting of the Martin Luetscher farm (see pages 58–59). 57

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Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher [sic]. Town Honey Creek. Wis. Sauk County, ca. 1885 WHS Museum #2005.182.1/WHI Image ID 41161. Gift of Peggy Luetscher Romenesko

Paul Seifert included four distinctive depictions of rock within each quadrant of this scene. The exposed rock outcropping along the horizon is the Sauk County natural landmark Tower Rock, below which Tower Rock School sits today. At far left is the limestone outcropping within the Luetscher property from which they harvested stone for use on the farm. The golden hue of the stone farmhouse clearly matches the natural outcroppings, as does the schoolhouse at bottom right. The earliest builders in the area, Swiss German immigrants who founded a colony in the Honey Creek valley in 1842, utilized the nearby stone to construct homes in a distinctive style and form, which can still be seen today in about one dozen homes in the Town of Honey Creek.

Tower Rock hovers over its namesake Tower Rock School in 1961, just a few years after it opened replacing fifteen one-room schools in the surrounding area. WHI Image ID 65548

L and and Rock Formations

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Warm colors draw the viewer’s eye toward the central element of this painting—the Gasser family’s white-sided farmhouse surrounded by a bright green lawn. Paul Seifert’s busy composition shows a bustling farm with livestock, many outbuildings, and numerous fields at a nineteenthcentury scale, probably ten acres. At the far left, Tower Rock looms over the scene. Initially, it might appear that the bluff is considerably out of proportion with the rest of the composition. However, Tower Rock truly towers in real life. The bluff terminates in a vertical face of rock, and the Gasser farm sat within the shadow of the distinctive formation.

Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880. Private Collection

L and and Rock Formations

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Paul Seifert painted this scene of his farm near Richland City from memory, years after he moved to a different residence near Gotham. The composition is similar to other works from later in his career—relatively small in size, with few details and no inscriptions. Seifert’s in-laws, the Kraft family, acquired this property for him and his wife, Elizabeth, and they lived on the forty acres from 1871 to the 1880s. Seifert painted these rock outcroppings in a cool gray as opposed to the typical warm golden and yellow tones that indicate exposed limestone in his other paintings. Some of the area’s limestone outcroppings are capped by sandstone that appears gray in color, but not these rocks, which are clearly yellow when seen in person. An apparent inaccuracy of this sort from Seifert, who spent considerable time exploring the Wisconsin River Valley, is puzzling. Today, the bluffs are shrouded by mature trees, but Wisconsin Historical Society archaeologists have surveyed the area and discovered the remains of stone foundations from either Seifert’s farm or that of his neighbors, the Beckwiths, which can be seen in the distance in the center of the painting. As a relic hunter and amateur archaeologist, Seifert would surely have been delighted to know that archaeologists would be exploring his farm nearly one hundred years after his death.

Paul Seifert farm

Richland County, ca. 1910 WHS Archives #PH4204/WHI Image ID 49512. Gift of Mrs. Nelson Bennett and sons

L and and Rock Formations

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Paul and Elizabeth Seifert in their Richland City garden, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Andrew H. Cockroft

COMPOSITION

“Paul Seifert liked order in his life and disliked disorder or confusion,” wrote one of his granddaughters in 1950. “His gardens carried this same pattern of order.”20 I find this assessment somewhat ironic given the degree to which Seifert introduced disorder and confusion into his life story. However, despite the murkiness of his biography, his farm paintings are composed of neatly ordered gardens, barnyards, orchards, and fields. Too neatly ordered, in fact. If you’ve ever been around a farm, you know it’s an inherently messy endeavor. Absent from the paintings are the ever-present dirt, mud, and muck that cling to boots, hooves, wagon wheels, and machinery and clutter up pathways, yards, and porches. Perhaps the owners of the farms Seifert painted valued the appearance of an orderly farm, which could symbolize prosperity. Maybe Seifert just didn’t want to paint dung. For whatever reason, the absence of disorder is another clue that these paintings should not be taken literally. Instead, they represent Seifert’s idealized view of man’s agricultural presence on the land. Seifert typically divided his farm scenes into thirds, with the bottom foreground showing fields or natural features, the middle portion containing the fields and farmhouse, and the top depicting the natural horizon and sky. The foreground often includes some sort of farming activity and detailed renderings of livestock, horsemen, or horse-drawn equipment, always in perfect profile. At least seven of his paintings show the process of cutting, raking, and hauling hay in nearly identical renderings. Seifert packed the middle portion of his paintings with finely detailed homes, barns, fences, and gardens and orchards, using ink pens and straightedges, and he occasionally dropped in tiny, unique details, such as children playing. If he inscribed the farm location and date, it was always located across the bottom in light ink or paint. In reality, some of the farms Seifert painted sit snugly against rising hills, while others are miles from the nearest bluffs, especially those located on the Wisconsin River bottom. Yet, Seifert placed rounded, wooded hills on the horizon in almost every painting—and at the same relative distance from the farms. By adjusting the relative distance of the 65

This painting of a mill and farm in the Helena Valley in 1880 provides an example of how Seifert dramatically compressed the elements of his scenes. In this case, he placed the farm nearly adjacent to the mill. Private Collection

horizon, Seifert was able to create nicely proportioned pictures. He also tightened scenes by placing buildings, gardens, and orchards closer to one another. This is evident in his painting of the Helena Valley Mills, which depicts an adjacent millhouse and farmhouse with a stream flowing between them. A photograph of the same scene shows that the two buildings were in fact quite far apart. Puffy clouds are another telltale sign of Seifert’s work. In nearly all of his paintings, rounded cumulus clouds, indicative of fair weather, hang low and appear to roll across the sky pushed by a firm breeze. He used white paint on darker backgrounds and, in later years, metallic paints, giving the clouds an iridescent quality. For several summers between 2013 and 2016, I visited the Ferdinand Baumgarth farm site, looking for the unusually rounded outcropping seen in Seifert’s representation. Unlike the rocks in his other paintings, the smooth borders and perfectly horizontal 66

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striations of this one give it an almost alien appearance. Yet, I simply could not locate the actual feature. I began to question the attribution of the farm.21 How could I not find such a distinctive natural landmark? But one early spring, before the hardwoods leafed out, I returned and voila! There was the bluff with the familiar exposed striations. Seifert likely sketched the farm when the trees had no leaves, but painted it to look like peak summer—the opportune time to showcase the lush green of hay in full growth, the brilliant yellow of winter wheat ready for harvest, and the trees’ leaves at their darkest hue. Setting the scene during this season allowed Seifert to capture nature’s rich color palette as well as the fruits of the farmers’ labor. Seifert’s scenes can be interpreted not as accurate snapshots of place and time but rather as compositions that reveal his own artistic sensibilities, and probably those of his customers. He regularly embellished his scenes with the same compositional elements that illuminate what he or his customers may have valued, or what he was best able to render. Besides hay harvesting, his bag of tricks included women seated on porches, children playing in yards, dinner bells hanging from posts, men on horses pulling wagons, and grazing cows and galloping horses.

The same scene from a slightly different perspective, ca. 1911. WHI Image ID 29048

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Detail of a woman, child, and dinner bell in the painting of the Pierson Young farm (see pages 92–93).

Perhaps he overdramatized the terrain of the bluffs, accentuating their natural beauty, because he spent countless hours exploring the Wisconsin River Valley as an artifact hunter. Maybe the trees are lush and highly detailed because he gained an appreciation for them while studying in a forestry academy. The large piles of hay and grain in many of the paintings also imply a successful farm. If farm owners commissioned Seifert to make paintings of their farms, they may have expected that he would create favorable depictions of their homes and land. The painting of Daniel Lewis’s farm (see pages 14–15)—one of Seifert’s most elaborate scenes—is a fine example of his standard formula for compositions divided evenly into foreground, middle, and background. Well-articulated trees cover a rugged horizon below a vibrant blue sky with puffy white clouds. A parade of livestock graces the foreground, and the property is abuzz with activity, leading us to presume that Lewis was a successful farmer. Unlike with most Seifert farms, we can’t visit the site today because it’s under water. When Governor Dodge State Park was expanded in the 1960s, the state acquired the land and dammed Mill Creek. Twin Valley Lake now covers the farm.22 Coincidentally, just a 68

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Photographer Andreas Dahl captured this southern Wisconsin farm in 1873. Similar to

Seifert’s paintings, the busy scene contains fields, gardens and groves, livestock pens,

and even beehives, all surrounding a large barn and home. The family members, dressed

in fine clothing, stand near the front fence, and their best carriage and team of horses are positioned closest to the photographer. WHI Image ID 25533

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year before Seifert sketched the farm, it was subject to a thorough audit, and we can use the documentation to see how the data compares with Seifert’s interpretation. The Agricultural Schedule for 1880, a farm census that is a mix between a regular census and a modern income tax statement, provides an astoundingly detailed look into Lewis’s farm and wealth, covering everything from the value of the land and buildings to the number of acres under crop production, and even the number of sheep killed by dogs that year. Compared to other farmers in the region, Lewis was more successful than most in terms of overall wealth. For example, his crop production was worth more than that of many others, and he possessed more cattle (thirty-nine) than Seifert could possibly fit on paper. Lewis’s livestock, crops, and produce were far more diversified than is normal for farms today but far fewer in number. Although not as thoroughly detailed as the agricultural census, Seifert’s paintings still capture the nature of the late-1800s farm landscape with its patchwork of small fields, pastures, gardens, orchards, and pens.23 Seifert lacked a gifted ability to render, but he was still able to create complex scenes with proportional balance and pleasing color schemes. As a boy, he studied at the Freimauer Institut (Masonic Institute) in Dresden, where today’s faculty confirm he likely received instruction in drawing and painting. Art historians who focus solely on his ability classify him as amateur, primitive, or naïve. They share the opinion that although he lacked in technique, he excelled in his ability to compose. “Seifert . . . had trouble drawing animals and people, and resolved his problem by placing them in profile,” Jean Lipman writes in American Primitive Painting. “Perspective was beyond him, so he ignored it. But he had a relaxed and gracious way of spacing things out in his pictures, and a poetic sense of color.”24 Lipman credited Seifert with wisely utilizing the color of the paper—often tan, gray, or blue—to determine the dominant tone of the composition and creatively selecting his palette of paint and ink colors from there.25

Agricultural Schedules Starting in 1840 and continuing through 1910, the federal government surveyed the nation’s farmers at varying intervals to gauge national agricultural output. Individually, these agricultural schedules provide detailed data about individual farmers’ wealth and production and make it easy to compare farms. They show exactly what each farmer was growing and raising, which sheds light on how our ancestors lived. For example, the milk produced by Daniel Lewis’s cattle in 1879 was not “sent or sold to butter or cheese factories.” Rather, all

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Daniel Lewis’s census data (highlighted) in the Agricultural Schedule for 1880 shows a prosperous farm relative to his neighbors’. Wisconsin Historical Society Archives

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of his milk became “butter made on the farm” (1,200 pounds’ worth!), and this was the case for nearly all of the farmers listed in the bound volume. So what became of all the butter he and his fellow farmers churned? Perplexed, I asked Wisconsin Historical Society archivist Rick Pifer to review the census page, and in response, he shared with me the following passage from Robert Nesbit’s The History of Wisconsin, Volume III:

An example of the “casual dairying” described by Wisconsin historian Robert

Nesbit, this image depicts butter-making on the back porch at an unknown farm location, ca. 1910.

WHI Image ID 85738

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Picture the husbandman [farmer] of the 1870s as, lantern in hand, he rouses

his manure-matted cows from their beds of warm dung. With grimy fingers he coaxes their milk into an open pail as kittens frisk in the hay at his feet. From

the fragrant product, the busy farmwife skims the cream, setting it aside to

ripen in a crock near the stove where her husband’s socks and boots are drying. Nearby, the family dog pursues the nimble flea with tooth and nail. The butter

resulting from such casual dairying was known as “Western grease.” It was sold in Chicago by the hundredweight as the base for wagon lubricants—in short, as axle grease.1

The passage eloquently captures the nature of farming and the economic realities of the marketplace during Seifert’s lifetime. In the late 1800s, Wisconsin was still transitioning toward an agriculture based on dairy, and professional standards were fairly crude. Thus, the butter churned on the farm was better suited for industrial usage rather than for consumable food. Farming at this time was hard work and filled with risk. The nostalgic feelings Seifert’s paintings generate for viewers conflict with the reality that nineteenth-century farming required endless labor and was risk-filled, even more so than today. The hard data of the agricultural census illuminates more clearly the economic realities of the day. 1. Robert Nesbit, The History of Wisconsin, Volume III: Urbanization and Industrialization, 1873–1893 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1985), 17.

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Fragile Creations

Watercolor paintings on paper are inherently fragile in nature. Unlike oil paints, the watercolors, metallic paint, and inks that Seifert used are far more susceptible to damage by light, humidity, or soiling, and the papers became acidified if they were backed by wooden boards. .

Detail of women harvesting hops from the painting of the Ferdinand Baumgarth farm (see pages 76–77).

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Watercolors are particularly susceptible to damage, even when protected by glass, and especially when exposed to sunlight or adjacent acidic backing boards. By 2010, this Seifert painting suffered from severe acid burns throughout the paper, which darkened and became extremely brittle. Through aggressive chemical treatment, the paper’s acid levels were greatly reduced, restoring both the painting’s vibrant colors and structural integrity. In the scene at the back left, women are harvesting hops, a flower used in brewing beer—one of many diverse crops grown in Wisconsin in the late 1800s. Historical photographs from this time period and region indicate that Seifert was particularly precise in his rendering of hops farming. According to the 1880 farm census, farmer Ferdinand Baumgarth did not produce hops around the time this painting was created, but most of his neighbors did. It is possible that he grew hops later in the 1880s; however, a fire destroyed most of the 1890 census records.

Just as Seifert depicts in his hops-picking scenes, women and

children assist the seasonal harvest in this hop yard near Wisconsin Dells in 1880. The fragrant flowers are plucked from the climbing

plants and collected in wooden bins. Once the long poles are cleared of the plants, the men stand them together for use the next year. WHI Image ID 30472

Ferdinand Baumgarth farm

Sauk County, ca. 1885 WHS Museum #2010.157.1/WHI Image ID 80432. Gift of Irene Meinen

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Similar to the Baumgarth painting, this Seifert watercolor also required an extensive amount of treatment due to general acid burn and soiling of the paper. After its restoration, the bright white of the house and clouds returned, as did the greens of the trees and the soft yellows of the ripe oats. Seifert frequently incorporated formulaic elements into his paintings, often a horse and rider, a woman sitting on a porch, children playing, a horseman pulling a carriage or wagon along the road, or a team of horses harvesting summer hay. He frequently utilized common objects as well, such as water well pumps and windmills. But in especially detailed scenes, Seifert included unique details, such as the group playing croquet in the center yard seen in the detail below. The painting’s owner hadn’t noticed the detail until after the conservation treatment, when it suddenly became visible.

Residence of T. C. Peck. Sauk Co. Wis. Ca. 1885 Private Collection

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Jacob Bennett farm Richland County, ca. 1910 WHS Archives #PH4204/WHI Image ID 49513. Gift of Mrs. Nelson Bennett and sons

Paul Seifert painted copies of this farm scene for each member of the Bennett family—his daughter’s in-laws—and several paintings exist today. This one stands out because it’s in remarkable condition, perhaps the best of all existing Seifert paintings. Bennett descendants donated this painting to the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1957, about forty-five years after its creation. Since then, with the exception of a few brief exhibitions, the painting has been housed in a proper storage environment with little exposure to light, and with stable temperature and humidity levels. The result is a perfectly clean painting with stunning, clear images. Some viewers express shock when they discover that it’s not a brand-new painting, but an original watercolor made over one hundred years ago. Like Seifert’s later paintings made for friends and family, this work is smaller than the paintings he created in his prime, with fewer details and no inscription. The telegraph line in the foreground is one of the few details in any of his paintings depicting emerging technologies on the land.

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PROCESS

In the letters used in Jean Lipman’s book, Seifert’s granddaughter goes into some detail about his process: You asked if he painted at home or traveled to do his farm scenes. Sometimes he left home for days, walking from one farm to the other with his sketch book. Some sketches were brought home and painted, others, as I understand, were done at the farms. . . . The farm scenes were all painted in watercolors. As money was very scarce in those

days, not more than $2.50 was paid for the paintings. He did not have a shop until later. These were done at home or on the farms.26

As we’ve discovered, Seifert’s granddaughters’ recollections can’t necessarily be considered fact, but his methods, as described above, match those of other landscape artists at that time. Several of Seifert’s study sketches—simple drawings done on cardboard—exist today, and they corroborate the claim that he sketched scenes in the field. The sketches show that he set down each basic composition in pencil, identified building materials, and recorded ideas for colors of paint he might use. In a letter Seifert wrote to Charles Brown in February 1906, he briefly explains, “I am going to Middleton Wis. Feb 5 on a tour to scatch [sketch] Farm property in Watercolors and will be in the surrounding Country of Middleton al [all] Week.”27 This is the only known document in which Seifert mentions his farm paintings, and the time of year raises some questions about his statement. There are only two known winter scenes, Gotham 1893 and Residence of E. R. Jones (1881). Even though Seifert wrote that he would sketch in watercolors, it seems unlikely he would have used those paints in the field in the cold of February. Perhaps he brought all of his materials and found space to work where he stayed. He likely traveled when he could, sketched most of the scenes in the field in pencil, and completed the watercolors later at his shop—a space he maintained at his last two residences. 83

Study sketch, pencil on cardboard, from which Seifert made his Law’s Landing painting, ca. 1910.

Courtesy of Marilyn Loft Houck

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This is the only known pairing of a sketch and watercolor painting by Seifert. The sketch

clearly shows how he captured the main elements of the composition—the building and landforms—and left the foreground and sky to be rendered later. Private Collection

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Based on the locations of Seifert’s known watercolor scenes, he traveled within a thirty-mile radius of Richland City and Gotham to paint them. Some of the farms were close enough that Seifert had the opportunity to sketch multiple scenes at once. This may have been the case for the Gasser, Luetscher, Huber, and Baumgarth farms, all of which were located within two miles of each other in the Town of Honey Creek in Sauk County, just under thirty miles from Richland City (see pages 60–61, 58–59, 32–33, and 34–35, respectively). If he traveled by foot, as his granddaughter stated, it stands to reason that Seifert would have sketched as many farms at one time as he could. Only one painting is believed to be from Dane County. Evidence suggests that the scene depicts the farm of Christof Orth in the Town of Middleton, and Seifert once mentioned traveling to Middleton by train. Orth was distantly related to Seifert through his daughter’s

A selection of known painting locations indicates that Paul Seifert traveled mostly within a thirty-mile radius of Richland City and Gotham. Courtesy of Douglas Griffin

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in-laws, which may explain why he traveled a longer distance—forty-five miles by train— to get there. Since there is no documentation that he either advertised or published notices in local newspapers, it seems likely that Seifert relied on word-of-mouth recommendations to secure customers. Residents probably did not share photographs of his paintings, so word must have traveled slowly, one neighbor-to-neighbor visit at a time. It makes sense, then, that Seifert spent decades pursuing this passion.

Six Generations on the Farm For the historian and curious alike, paintings that depict real places can prompt deeper explorations. Who lived there? Whatever happened to that place? Can I see it today? Around 1885, Paul Seifert painted the farm of Pierson Young in the Town of Troy in Sauk County. The view is due east at a sunrise over the hills in what may be late summer or early fall. Men are harvesting crops of oats, yet the trees, garden, and lawn are a lush green. Like most farm families in the Driftless Area at that time, the Youngs appear to have horses, cows, pigs, and an assortment of other animals. The Agricultural Census for 1880 confirms that Pierson Young grew a range of crops including wheat, corn, and oats, and also owned a variety of livestock. Seifert depicts an orderly garden and orchard and small fields relative to today’s standards; Young’s largest field in 1880 was ten acres. The painting shows a man driving a team of horses and a woman on the farmhouse porch—compositional elements typical of Seifert’s paintings. In 1851, Pierson Young purchased the original farm in two forty-acre parcels. Today, his descendants still possess the two land patent documents. Both parcels were “bounty land,” or land given to veterans of the Mexican–American War by the United States government as compensation for their service. The veteran Texas Rangers likely used a broker to sell their parcel to Young, and the final transaction took place at the Mineral Point land office. This farm has stayed in the family for over 150 years, and it has changed dramatically as it has grown in acreage and number of structures. It even survived major tornado damage in 1918. Today, Pierson’s great-great-greatgrandson, Steven Sorg, lives and works on the family farm. In 1947, seventeen-year-old John Elwood Sorg, the fifth generation of Pierson Young’s family to live on the farm, wrote a thirteen-page, single-spaced

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The Pierson Young family, ca. 1890. Left to right, front row: Pierson Young and Julia (Cramer) Young; back row: Susan (Young) Davis and Mary Catherine (Young) Davis. Courtesy of Steven and Connie Sorg

paper in which he clearly and articulately envisions his future as a farmer. A close examination of the paper reveals that Sorg possessed a vast amount of practical knowledge about farming; he obviously paid attention while growing up. He also imparts wisdom beyond his years and occasionally writes in an eloquent, almost poetic, style. Here are just a few of his statements: Much of the work of a farmer is outdoor work which brings him into direct

contact with the crops and with nature in her varying moods. . . . Many farmers dislike chores and this is the reason many farmers have a small income. . . .

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Three generations harvesting hay on the farm, ca. 1920. In the foreground,

John Edward Sorg forks the hay. Standing on the wagon are Howard Sorg (left) and John Adolph Sorg.

Courtesy of Steven and Connie Sorg

In the summer time it is very refreshing to lie down on the lawn or sit on a lawn

bench and listen to the late birds sing their beautiful song. . . . If I can live a comfortable happy life and feel I have done my part for the good side and have my conscience clear I will figure I have been successful.28

The teacher had just one comment at the end of the paper: “Sounds really as though you know what you were writing about—A.” Thanks to the extensive family history passed down through the generations, including many photos, documents, and even some artifacts, we now

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know that Seifert’s paintings are not abstract in the slightest. His paintings depict real places in Wisconsin. These places may look different today, or are long gone, but through his snapshots in time, we get the opportunity to explore not just land and space, but also people and families over time. For generations of the Young and Sorg families, Seifert’s painting documents their deep roots in Sauk County and their long, proud history as family farmers.

John Sorg’s high school paper, “Farming as a Career,” 1947. Courtesy of John and Dorothy Sorg

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Distinctive Skies

Almost all of Paul Seifert’s known paintings include depictions of fluffy clouds and sometimes a rising or setting sun. His basic composition of these elements remained the same over the years, but he utilized different paints to create different effects.

Detail of the sun and clouds from the painting of an unknown farm (see pages 96–97). 91

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The Pierson Young farm still exists today, so we know that the sun is on the eastern horizon, making this a sunrise scene. Whenever he included the sun in his watercolors, Seifert placed it along the horizon and often utilized metallic paints to create an iridescent effect, and he added metallic accent strokes on the undersides of the clouds in this scene as well. As with most of his works, this painting’s reflective quality has faded slightly over the years. The man driving a team of horses and the woman on the farmhouse porch may represent Pierson Young and his wife, Julia. However, the painting also shows a boy and girl at a time when the Sorgs’ children were grown and no longer residing at their home. Even if they were, it seems unlikely that the boy would have played with a stick and ball in the road as the sun rose. This painting represents the composite nature of Seifert’s farm paintings: he accurately represented the farm’s buildings and the surrounding landscape, but he then populated each scene with generic vignettes of farm and family life that would not have occurred at the same time and place.

Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis. Sauk County, ca. 1885 WHS Museum #2010.60.1/WHI Image ID 74656. Gift of John and Dorothy Sorg

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This painting provides the best-known example of Seifert’s use of metallic paints for the sun and clouds, as well as for other details such as the interior glow from a home’s lighting. More frequently he used watercolor paints to depict clouds, but here he exclusively uses metallics, resulting in a pleasing mix of soft green, red, and white watercolors and vibrant gold metallics. The view is to the south, placing the sun on the southern horizon—a curious mistake by Seifert. He painted on cardboard for this scene—the only known farm painting not on paper. The proportions did not allow for an inscription at the bottom, which may have resulted in the farm’s identity being lost for many years. At some point folk art scholar Jean Lipman acquired the painting. In the 1950s, Herman Wegner’s son, Floyd, saw the painting in a 1953 TIME Magazine art publication identified only as “Wisconsin Farm Scene” as a part of the Cooperstown Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum. The family wrote to the museum in 1961, and Fannie Wegner visited the museum in 1984 to confirm its identity. A photograph in the Richland County Library from the early 1900s proves that Seifert’s depiction of the distinctive barn and cupola was quite accurate.

Wisconsin Farm Scene [Herman Wegner farm] Richland County, ca. 1895 Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, Gift of Stephen C. Clark, Jean and Howard Lipman Collection, N0332.1961. Photograph by Richard Walker.

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Seifert utilized watercolors and metallics in this painting to portray both of his cloud types in one sky—an unusual combination. Each cloud is painted in his signature style, with the leading edge at left and the wisps trailing off to the right, regardless of wind direction or time of year. The result is a cloud-filled sky, with those clouds closest to the sun rendered in the same iridescent metallic paint. Perhaps Seifert attempted to capture the orange glow of the horizon during a sunrise or sunset. The other notable characteristic of this painting is the amount of blue—even the yard, fields, and some of the wooded bluffs are awash in the same light shade. Even though Seifert painted on a variety of colored papers, this paper is off-white. It’s unlikely that Seifert chose to utilize a blue watercolor for obviously green subject matter. It’s more likely that this specific batch of green watercolor paint, a mix of yellow and blue paints, had an adverse chemical reaction that removed the presence of the yellow. In this and several other paintings, Seifert included a neighboring farm unit in the background, seen here at center right. He rendered the all-important water well pump—the lifeblood of a farm—in nearly all of his farm scenes, but here he modified the element by showing a pipe sending water to a trough at the edge of the road for watering horses.

Unknown farm scene, ca. 1900 Courtesy of Kate and Kell Damsgaard

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Martin Luetscher’s son, Jacob, took over their Town of Honey Creek farm near Tower

Rock. Here, he and his family take a moment to pose in front of the newly expanded rear

wing, ca. 1895, approximately ten years after Seifert painted the farm (see pages 58–59). Left to right: unidentified hired laborer, Lillian, Anna, Alvin, Jacob, and Irvin Luetscher. Courtesy of Wilbur and Nyla Luetscher

LEGACY

No one knows how many watercolors Paul Seifert created, but my tally sheet puts the total at around fifty-five. Because the earliest was painted in 1878 and the latest in about 1915, it’s reasonable to believe he made many more. Watercolors are not durable, so some may have been discarded after fading, becoming soiled, or deteriorating on acidified paper. And even more may be lost or sit forgotten in attics and basements. In the late 1940s, Seifert’s granddaughter wrote about the importance of his art: As for my grandfather making any remarks about art or painting, I asked my mother, his daughter and she told me that he said: “People like my work and I like to paint for

them.” In this he found satisfaction. You will notice in the picture of the Nelson Bennett farm, he tried to pay attention to details, little personal things such as the dinner bell on

the woodshed. . . . These little things, I think, made his work more personal to people that he painted for and we draw this conclusion: to the ordinary class of people, art that

portrays scenes from everyday life as people work and live, is most appreciated—and I think my grandfather knew this to be true.29

At the time, Seifert’s farm paintings had yet to be shared with the wider world. Free from the influence of scholars and critics, his granddaughter saw them for what they originally were—beloved family heirlooms. Soon, though, his paintings would become works of art, peculiar in appearance to those unfamiliar with the landscape of the lower Wisconsin River Valley. What if Seifert had settled somewhere less visually compelling? Would he have been as inspired by the land? Would his scenes be as interesting? Would they be as marketable, either then or now? Probably not. As art lovers, we’re fortunate that dozens do exist. They provide a colorful and compelling view of a timeless Wisconsin landscape and a bygone era of labor-intensive, diversified family farming. As historians, we appreciate what the paintings add to the historical record, but we’re also unfulfilled because Seifert’s story still has many gaps to fill and anecdotes 99

to prove. After years of searching—fifteen for me and many more for others—the puzzle is still missing pieces. Where, for example, is an 1880s letter from someone whose farm Seifert just completed, revealing details of his process, how he communicated, or how he sold his watercolors? The historian in me is desperate to discover firsthand documentation that’s not just another colorful painting. But of course the Seifert fan in me becomes filled with anticipation whenever I hear of a potential newly surfaced painting. By now, I expected to find some pieces of the puzzle in a letter or old newspaper. Given the nature of what was considered news in Seifert’s day, I’m still amazed that nothing has materialized. There is no actual documentation, just published hearsay. Did no one at the time care about his travels or his art? Why did those legendary and mythical cave tales receive significant attention so soon after his death? Would we even know about Seifert if it weren’t for those stories? Or were his farm paintings bound to bring him fame? In a way, Seifert’s paintings are just as much a fiction as his cave stories; they are not completely realistic, and they, too, tell a colorful story. But in another way, his paintings are very authentic. They connect us with real places where real people worked and raised families. We recognize the farms, even though they don’t look that way anymore, and perhaps think about our own family history or how farming has dramatically changed. We are intrigued by Seifert’s portrayal of the beauty of the land, even if we’ve never been to that part of Wisconsin, and perhaps see the natural world around us a little differently. Because his imagery is warm and nostalgic, we tend to romanticize the maker as well. Unfortunately, his story leaves us wanting more. But what we do know about Paul Seifert is that he traveled a long way to Wisconsin and found a natural landscape favorable to his many passions and a local community receptive to his creative talents. Fortunately, his body of compelling farm paintings that survive today allow many to love him and cherish his artistic contributions, whether they are scholars or critics, collectors or enthusiasts, painting owners or Driftless Area residents who live among the same farms and lands as did Paul Seifert.

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In 1938, photographer Sherwin Gillett climbed atop Bogus Bluff to capture this Image

looking to the southeast. The dramatic landscape where the Wisconsin River cuts through the Driftless Area has inspired many to wander about with sketchbook or camera in hand. WHI Image 103322

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A Diverse Range

The following paintings represent the range of Paul Seifert’s farm scenes. He sketched farms from Richland, Iowa, and Sauk Counties over several decades, and the resulting paintings differed significantly in their color palette, inclusion of human and agricultural activity, and level of detail.

Detail of a barn from the painting of the J. Adolph Sprecher farm (see pages 108–109). 103

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According to Shirk family history, Paul Seifert made copies of this colorful scene for each of Christopher Shirk’s seven surviving children, and at least three paintings exist today. The scene faces east, and Seifert tucked a rising sun between two rounded bluffs that have no trees. Perhaps those bluffs were unforested, but it is more likely that Seifert did not include distant trees, as he did in most every other farm scene, because he had to produce numerous versions. The blue skies and white buildings pair nicely, as do the green trees and bright red barns, resulting in a colorful yet balanced scene. Seifert minimized the less important buildings by painting them in a muted gray. The smaller home at lower left is clearly part of the farm. By the early 1900s, Christopher’s son Walter was listed in the census as the head of the household and Christopher, widowed and in his mid-sixties, resided with Walter’s wife and children. Perhaps by this time, Christopher had moved into the smaller cottage.

Christopher Shirk farm Richland County, ca. 1900 Private Collection

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This painting has roughly the same width as others in this book, but is shorter in height. Its inscription, the handwritten title across the bottom, was cut away at some point. Because it stayed in the family, the exact location of the scene is known today. Seifert’s precisely rendered buildings showing each timber suggest that all but one of the buildings (the large barn at right) were first-generation structures that had not yet been replaced by framed buildings made from milled lumber, which was common at this time in southwestern Wisconsin. He meticulously painted the trees, both near and far, yet did not include any livestock and little human activity. With its yellow and dark green paints on brown paper, this work closely resembles the Peck farm painting (see page 78–79). A note was written on this painting’s backing material in 1963 by Lischeske-descendent John Martell: “Painted with bogus money paint/Painted aprox 1886.” This most likely refers to the lore surrounding Seifert’s purported role in counterfeiting activities in the hidden caves of Bogus Bluff. Rumors of Seifert’s involvement in counterfeiting persisted during his lifetime and afterward, most likely because he lived near Bogus Bluff and frequently purchased the Green #2 watercolor paint present in this painting, which was thought to be used for illegal currency making.

August Lischeske farm Iowa County, ca. 1885 Private Collection

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This busy scene captures a wide view of a rural neighborhood with a nearby church in the distance. Seifert included extensive human activity in this painting, with women standing in the yard, a woman riding a horse, a couple in a carriage, a full hay harvesting scene, and a horse and rider on a distant country road. He also populated the scene with many animals including the typical horses, cows, pigs, dogs, chickens, and geese, but also a peacock roosting on a roof ridge at center. More than in his other paintings, Seifert utilized dark orange tones that pair nicely with the light brown paper, as do the bold greens. Seifert rendered the large barn at right in great detail, precisely depicting each foundation stone, the metal hinges on the wooden doors, and the barn’s vented cupolas.

Farm von Herrn J. Adolph Sprecher. Town Troy. Wis. Sauk County, ca. 1885 Courtesy of David Wheatcroft

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APPENDIX KNOWN WATERCOLOR FARM PAINTINGS The following list is an attempt to gather known information regarding original watercolor farm paintings by Paul Seifert, including those published in this book. At the time of publication, there are between fifty and fifty-five known farm paintings. Here, they are listed alphabetically by the first letter of the farm owner’s last name or keyword. Some paintings have sources that are known and publishable, many others are in private collections, and still more are known to exist though their current whereabouts are unknown. This is not a definitive catalog. Some of the paintings may have been documented multiple times as they were bought and sold, especially the unknown scenes. Several others are believed to be original works by Seifert, but I can’t confirm their authenticity as I have only examined about half of the paintings on the list. A few paintings are attributed to Seifert, but poor available imagery makes them difficult to verify. Finally, there are, I’m sure, other farm paintings of which I’m not aware. If a painting on this list has an inscription, I have considered that its title and presented it here in italics.

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Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis. Ca. 1885 Private Collection (See pages 34–35)

Ferdinand Baumgarth farm Sauk County, ca. 1885 WHS Museum #2010.157.1/WHI Image ID 80432 (See pages 76–77)

Jacob Bennett farm Richland County, ca. 1910 WHS Archives #PH4204 (See pages 80–81) There are two or three other versions of this painting in private collections.

Hiram Bickford farm Iowa County, ca. 1880 Private Collection

William Brown farm Richland County Source unknown

Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879 Sauk County American Folk Art Museum (See pages 30–31)

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Gaard af Halvor Ellefson. Sauk Co. Wis: Nord. Amer. 1878. Private Collection (See pages 28–29)

Farm Landscape Unknown location Likely associated with John Herman Rasque of Muscoda, Wisconsin. Image published in Sotheby’s Catalog (7195), October 1998, page 156. Source unknown

Farm scene with Ford vehicle Image published in Young America: A Folk-Art History, page 98. This is actually the farm of Nelson Bennett, Richland County, ca. 1910. Source unknown

G. W. Foster farm Iowa County, possibly 1880 Source unknown

Residence of Mr. Andrew Fritsch Eden, Iowa Co. Wis. Iowa County Private Collection

Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880. Private Collection (See pages 60–61)

Gotham. 1893. Richland County Private Collection (See pages 46–47) Appendix: Known Watercolor Farm Paintings

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Gotham church and parsonage Richland County Private Collection

Farm Scene near Gotham Possibly Richland County Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York

Gutknecht farm Richland County Private Collection

Residence of Mr. F. Hapgood 1879. Richland County Source unknown

Helene Valley Mills. Town Wyoming Iowa Co Wis. 1880 Private Collection (See pages 44–45)

Clark Hickcox farm (inscription illegible due to condition) Iowa County, ca. 1880 Private Collection

Hodgson farm Iowa County Private Collection

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Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis. Ca. 1890 David Wheatcroft collection (See pages 32–33)

Farm Residence of Mr. J. B. Johnson Town of Eden, Iowa Co. Wis. Private Collection

Residence of Mr E. R. Jones. Town Dodgeville, Wis. 1881. Iowa County Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York (See pages 16–17)

Law’s Landing scene Richland County, ca. 1910 Private Collection (See pages 48–49)

Residence of Mr Daniel Lewis. Town Dodgville. Iowa Co. Wis. 1881. WHS Archives #PH4204/WHI Image ID 49511 (See pages 14–15)

August Lischeske farm Iowa County, ca. 1885 Private Collection (See pages 106–107)

Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher. Town Honey Creek. Wis. Sauk County, ca. 1885 WHS Museum #2005.182.1/WHI Image ID 41161 (See pages 58–59) Appendix: Known Watercolor Farm Paintings

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McNamer homestead Taylor County Painted by Seifert from sketch provided by McNamer family Source Unknown

Christof Orth or William Wesenberg, Jr. farm Dane County, possibly 1906 Private Collection

Lewis Pauls farm Richland County, ca. 1915 Source Unknown

Residence of T. C. Peck. Sauk Co. Wis. Ca. 1885 Private Collection (See pages 78–79)

Pierstorff farm Richland County Private Collection

Residence of Mr L Richardson 1880. Iowa County Private Collection (See pages 12–13)

Rohn family farm Richland County, ca.1900 Private Collection

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Paul Seifert farm Richland County, ca.1910 WHS Archives #PH4204/WHI Image ID 49512 (See pages 62–63)

Christopher Shirk farm Richland County, ca. 1900 Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum collection

Christopher Shirk farm Richland County, ca. 1900 Private Collection (See pages 104–105) Two additional versions may exist in private collections.

Farm von Herrn J. Adolph Sprecher. Town Troy. Wis. Sauk County, ca. 1885 Private Collection (See pages 108–109)

Unknown farm scene, ca. 1900 Kale and Kell Damsgaard collection (See pages 96–97)

Residence of Gottfried Walder. Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co Wis. Ca. 1885 Henry Ford Museum

Appendix: Known Watercolor Farm Paintings

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Wisconsin Farm Scene [Herman Wegner farm] Richland County, ca. 1895 Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York (See pages 94–95)

Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis. Sauk County, ca. 1885 WHS Museum #2010.60.1/WHI Image ID 74656 (See pages 92–93)

At the time of this book’s publication, there are six other farm paintings with unknown locations either in private collections or with current source unknown.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the follow-up to the Wisconsin Historical Society’s 2014 exhibition on Paul Seifert’s art, Wisconsin in Watercolor: The Farmscapes of Paul Seifert. To be able to share his story, then and now, required the insights, assistance, and efforts of many people. I’d like to acknowledge the following for their critical roles. Thank you. To Peggy Luetscher Romenesko and her parents, Wilbur and Nyla Luetscher, who donated their watercolor depicting the Sauk County farm of their ancestor, Martin Luetscher. Their donation created a precedent for other owner families and allowed the Society to acquire a critical mass of original paintings that ultimately made the exhibition and book possible. To Irene Meinen for her painting donation. To the family of John and Dorothy Sorg for their painting donation, as well as their knowledge, documents, and photographs. To Robert and Jo Wagner for their financial support. To Kent and Marilyn Houck for their financial support. To David Wheatcroft, the Museum of American Folk Art, the Fenimore Art Museum, and numerous other owners for making their paintings available for publication and allowing us to share their treasures. To Andrew Cockroft, fourth-generation descendent of Paul Seifert, for many years of providing information, photographs and documents, and consultation. 119

To Ron Nagel for generously sharing voluminous amounts of information, photographs, documents, and research contacts, and for his willingness to thoroughly and doggedly pursue endless Seifert research queries. To Steven and Connie Sorg for their knowledge and photographs. To conservator Len Lassandro for his advocacy of the Seifert story, and for his professional treatments. To Crystal Foley at the Richland County Library for her expertise and providing documentation. To David Wheatcroft for his assistance and advocacy. To art historian Sarah Stolte for her expertise in setting Seifert in context as seen in the introduction and for pushing the Society to give Seifert a proper exhibition treatment. Also, to the Kohler Foundation, which provided Sarah with funding and tuition during the years that she worked on the exhibition project. To Leslie Bellais for her diligent genealogical research. To the dedicated staff in the Wisconsin Historical Society Conservation and Digital Labs for their careful work scanning many of these watercolors. To Michael Hollander and Douglas Griffin at the Wisconsin Historical Museum for presenting a tremendous exhibition. And to Kathy Borkowski, Diane Drexler, Kate Thompson, and Elizabeth Wyckoff at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press for seeing the value of interpretive treatments of historical art and for delivering a wonderful book.

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NOTES

  1. Joanne Cubbs, “Rebels, Mystics, and Outcasts,” in The Artist Outsider: Creativity and the Boundaries of Culture, ed. Michael D. Hall, E. W. Metcalf, and Roger Cardinal (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), 77.   2. Richard L. Huff, “Paul Seifert: A Wisconsin Pioneer Artist,” Wisconsin Tales and Trails 8, no. 4 (1967): 16–19.   3. William F. Stark, “Portraits of the Land: Paul Seifert’s 19th-Century Watercolors of Neighbors’ Farmsteads Are Today Considered Leading Examples of American Folk Art,” Wisconsin Trails 35, no. 5 (October 1994): 40–45.   4. Jim Bohn, Herman Markert: The Picture Maker. Self-published, 2012.   5. Gary Brown, “Artist Ferdinand A. Brader Captured 19th Century Farmlife, Local History in Pencil Drawings,” Canton Repository, November 30, 2014. www.cantonrep.com/article/20141130/News/141129328.   6. Paul Baker Prindle, introduction to Ernest Hüpeden: Beyond the Forest, exhibition catalog, Stream Gallery, Edgewood College, 2012. https://finearts.edgewood.edu/portals/finearts/_resources/documents/pdfs/ beyond_the_forest_ex.pdf.   7. Lisa Stone, “Ernest Hüpeden’s Atlas,” in Ernest Hüpeden: Beyond the Forest, exhibition catalog, Stream Gallery, Edgewood College, 2012. https://finearts.edgewood.edu/portals/finearts/_resources/documents/pdfs/ beyond_the_forest_ex.pdf.   8. Fourteen newspapers from the area are thoroughly indexed, allowing researchers to find the briefest mentions of individuals and their activities from 1855 to 1880. The major newspapers, the Richland Republican Observer and Richland Rustic, have been indexed through 1900. Additionally, the Richland County History Room at the Brewer Public Library in Richland Center has an extensive research file including all known local publications.

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 9. Richland Observer, August 18, 1921. The obituary includes this line: “[Seifert] painted pictures and much of his work adorns many homes in Richland county.” This may refer to his farm paintings but could also refer to the generic castle paintings on glass that he produced for sale. 10. “Gotham’s Artist’s Painting in New Book in Library,” Richland Democrat, December 26, 1957. 11. Mary A. James, “Bogus Cave,” The Wisconsin Magazine (first edition), March 1923, 20–21, 58–59. James writes a detailed account of the counterfeiting history linked to Bogus Bluff caves. The introductory editor’s note references the famous “Waverley novels,” in which Sir Walter Scott used historical settings as the basis of his colorful stories. Perhaps the editor is suggesting that the Bogus Cave story is a piece of fiction as well. 12. Jean Lipman, Primitive Painters in America: 1750–1950 (New York: Dodd Mead, 1950), 149–150. Lipman did not specify which of Seifert’s granddaughters wrote which excerpts in 1950, but thirty years later she attributed “a number of revealing letters” to granddaughter Myrtle Bennett in American Folk Painters of Three Centuries (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1980), 160. 13. Stark, “Portraits of the Land,” 40. 14. Stark, “Portraits of the Land,” 43. It is unknown if Stark interviewed Dye or if he quoted her undated essay in the research files of the Richland County History Room at the Brewer Public Library. 15. Lipman, Primitive Painters, 149. 16. “Search Goes On for Paintings and Legendary Cave of Artist,” Milwaukee Journal, September 10, 1972. In 1939 State Historical Society of Wisconsin superintendent Joseph Schafer visited Seifert’s daughter, Mrs. Nelson Bennett, and concluded it was “merely imagined,” citing the daughter’s statement that they never hosted a visitor from Austria. 17. Charles E. Brown Papers, 1889–1945, WHS Mss 287. Seifert’s letters to Brown are stored chronologically within the Brown papers. 18. The envelope containing the handwritten “Caves of the Dead” letter has a note, in unknown handwriting, reading “from Mr. Paul A. Seifert, 1922, who had promised it to Charles E. Brown.” This would imply that they talked about the find. But who wrote the note, and can it be trusted? 19. Steven Fogo, “Tales the Tombstones Tell,” Richland Republican Observer, July 26, 1956. 20. Lipman, Primitive Painters, 150.

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21. Close examination of the bottom edge of the paper during restoration revealed slice marks, suggesting that it may have had its identifying inscription removed. 22. Department of Natural Resources purchase records show that only the foundations of the buildings remained in 1962. If you’re canoeing on the lake, the home and farm were located at the narrow headwater of the southernmost valley that was inundated during the creation of Twin Valley Lake. 23. Agricultural Schedule for 1880, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives. 24. Alexander Elliot, ed., Three Hundred Years of American Painting (New York: Time Inc., 1957), 56. 25. Lipman, Primitive Painters, 152. 26. Lipman, Primitive Painters, 150. 27. Paul Seifert to Charles Brown, February 4, 1906. Charles E. Brown Papers, 1889–1945, WHS Mss 287. For some reason, Seifert sent Brown two letters dated February 4, 1906, with essentially the same message, but one is longer than the other and has more detail. 28. John Sorg, “Farming as a Career” (unpublished paper, 1947). 29. Lipman, Primitive Painters, 152.

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INDEX Page numbers in bold font refer to images.

agricultural schedules, 35, 70–73, 71 barns, 17, 69, 95, 103, 105, 107, 109 Barton, Max, 4 Baumgarth, Carl, 35 Baumgarth, Ferdinand, 35 farm, 65–66, 75, 76–77, 77, 112 Baumgarth, Gustave, 35 Baumgarth, Henry, 35 Baumgarth, Pauline, 35 Baumgarth family farm, 34–35, 35, 65–66, 112 Beckman, Norma Dye, 2, 24–25 Bennett, Jacob, farm, 80–81, 81, 112 Bennett, Nelson, 113, 122n16 Bickford, Hiram, farm, 112 bird’s-eye-view maps, 52–53, 53 Bogus Bluff caves, 21, 22–23, 37, 38–39, 107, 122n11, 122n18 Brader, Ferdinand career and works of, 4 The Property of Jacob G. and Hannah Hertzog, 1881 (cat. no. 10), 3 Brown, Charles, 22–23, 38, 83, 123n27 Brown, William, farm, 112 Burch-Bolden family homestead (Hüpeden), 5 butter, 70–73 “casual dairying,” 72, 73

cave legends, 21, 22–23, 24, 37, 38–39, 122nn11*18 Caves of the Dead, 21, 22–23, 37, 38–39, 122n18 clouds, 66, 91, 95, 97 composition, 65–73 Cooper, Lemuel, residence, 30–31, 31, 112 counterfeiting, 21, 38, 107, 122n11 Cubbs, Joanne, 2 Dahl, Andreas, 69 Dane County Christof Orth or William Wesenberg, Jr. farm, 116 Davis, Mary Catherine (Young), 88 Davis, Susan (Young), 88 disorder, 65 Dodgeville Residence of Mr Daniel Lewis. Town Dodgville. Iowa Co. Wis. 1881, 14–15, 15, 17, 68–70, 115 Residence of Mr E. R. Jones. Town Dodgeville, Wis. 1881, 11, 16–17, 17, 83, 115 Driftless Area, 51, 57 dump rake, 33 Eden Farm Residence of Mr. J. B. Johnson Town of Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 115

Residence of Mr. Andrew Fritsch Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 113 Ellefson, Halvor, farm, 27, 28–29, 29, 31, 113 Farm Landscape, 113 Farm Residence of Mr. J. B. Johnson Town of Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 115 Farm Scene near Gotham, 114 Farm scene with Ford vehicle, 113 Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis., 34–35, 35, 65–66, 112 Farm von Herrn J. Adolph Sprecher. Town Troy. Wis., 103, 108–109, 109, 117 Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis., 32–33, 33, 115 Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880., 60–61, 61, 113 flag(s), 29, 31 Foster, G. W., farm, 113

Gaard af Halvor Ellefson. Sauk Co. Wis: Nord. Amer. 1878., 27, 28–29, 29, 31, 113 Gasser, Jacob, farm, 60–61, 61, 113 Gillett, Sherwin, 101 Gotham, Myron, 39

125

Gotham. 1893., 46–47, 47, 83, 113 Gotham church and parsonage, 114 Gutknecht farm, 114 hay harvesting, 31, 67, 89, 109 Helena Valley Mills, 66, 67 Helene Valley Mills. Town Wyoming Iowa Co Wis. 1880, 44–45, 45, 66, 114 Hickcox, Clark, farm, 114 hills, 65–66 Hodgson farm, 114 Honey Creek, 59 Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis., 32–33, 33, 115 Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880., 60–61, 61, 113 Residence of Gottfried Walder. Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co Wis., 117 Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher. Town Honey Creek. Wis., 54, 57, 58–59, 59, 115 hops, 33, 35, 75, 77 Huber, Jakob, farm, 32–33, 33, 115 Huff, Richard, 2 Hüpeden, Ernest, 4–5, 6 Burch-Bolden family homestead, 5 The Painted Forest, 4–5 The Valley Where the Bluebirds Sing, 6 inscriptions, 27 Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis., 34–35, 35, 65–66, 112 Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis., 32–33, 33, 115 Gaard af Halvor Ellefson. Sauk Co. Wis: Nord. Amer. 1878., 27, 28–29, 29, 31, 113

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Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879, 30–31, 31, 112 Iowa County August Lischeske farm, 106–107, 107, 115 Clark Hickcox farm, 114 Farm Residence of Mr. J. B. Johnson Town of Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 115 G. W. Foster farm, 113 Helene Valley Mills. Town Wyoming Iowa Co Wis. 1880, 44–45, 45, 66, 114 Hiram Bickford farm, 112 Hodgson farm, 114 Residence of Mr. Andrew Fritsch Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 113 Residence of Mr Daniel Lewis. Town Dodgville, Iowa Co. Wis. 1881, 14–15, 15, 17, 68–70, 115 Residence of Mr E. R. Jones. Town Dodgeville, Wis. 1881, 11, 16–17, 17, 83, 115 Residence of Mr L Richardson 1880., 12–13, 13, 116 James, Mary A., 122n11 Jones, E. R., farm, 11, 16–17, 17, 83, 115 Kraft, Elizabeth. See Seifert, Elizabeth (Kraft) land and rock formations, 57 Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880., 60–61, 61, 113 Paul Seifert farm, 1–2, 1, 62–63, 63, 117 Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher. Town Honey Creek. Wis., 54, 57, 58–59, 59, 115 Law’s Landing scene, 43, 48–49, 49, 84, 115 legacy, of Paul Seifert, 99–100

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Lewis, Daniel census data for, 71 residence, 14–15, 15, 17, 68–72 Lipman, Jean, 21–23, 37, 70, 95, 122n12 Lischeske, August, farm, 106–107, 107, 115 Luetscher, Jacob, 98 Luetscher, Martin, farm, 54–55, 54, 57, 58–59, 59, 98 Markert, Herman, 3 “View of the Residence of Mrs. D. H. Kelly, Buffalo Township, Union County, Penn’s,” 3 Martell, John, 107 McNamer homestead, 116 metallic paints, 93, 95, 97 modernization, 5–6 Nesbit, Robert, 72–73 order, 65 Orth, Christof, 86–87 farm, 116 Painted Forest, The (Hüpeden), 4–5 Pauls, Lewis, farm, 116 Peck, T. C., residence, 78–79, 79, 116 Pierstorff farm, 116 Pifer, Rick, 72 Plain Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879, 30–31, 31, 112 Prindle, Paul Baker, 5 process, of Paul Seifert, 83–90 Property of Jacob G. and Hannah Hertzog, 1881, The (Brader), 3 Rasque, John Herman, 113 Residence of Gottfried Walder.

Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co Wis., 117 Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879, 30–31, 31, 112 Residence of Mr. Andrew Fritsch Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 113 Residence of Mr Daniel Lewis. Town Dodgville, Iowa Co. Wis. 1881, 14–15, 15, 17, 68–70, 115 Residence of Mr E. R. Jones. Town Dodgeville, Wis. 1881, 11, 16–17, 17, 83, 115 Residence of Mr. F. Hapgood 1879., 114 Residence of Mr L Richardson 1880., 12–13, 13, 116 Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher. Town Honey Creek. Wis., 54, 57, 58–59, 59, 115 Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis., 68, 92–93, 93, 118 Residence of T. C. Peck. Sauk Co. Wis., 78–79, 79, 116 Richardson, Leonidas, residence, 12–13, 13 Richland Center bird’s-eye-view map of, 52–53 Richland City, 38, 39–40 map of, 40–41 Richland County Christopher Shirk farm, 104–105, 105, 117 Farm Scene near Gotham, 114 Gotham. 1893., 46–47, 47, 83, 113 Gotham church and parsonage, 114 Gutknecht farm, 114 Jacob Bennett farm, 80–81, 81, 112 Law’s Landing scene, 43, 48–49, 49, 84, 115 Lewis Pauls farm, 116 Paul Seifert farm, 1–2, 1, 62–63, 63, 117 Pierstorff farm, 116 Residence of Mr. F. Hapgood 1879., 114 Rohn family farm, 116 William Brown farm, 112

Wisconsin Farm Scene [Herman Wegner farm], 94–95, 95, 96, 118 rock formations. See land and rock formations Rohn family farm, 116 Romantic Movement, 2 Romenesko, Peggy Luetscher, 54 rural modernization, 5–6 Sauk County Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis., 34–35, 35, 65–66, 112 Farm von Herrn J. Adolph Sprecher. Town Troy. Wis, 103, 108–109, 109, 117 Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis., 32–33, 33, 115 Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880., 60–61, 61, 113 Ferdinand Baumgarth farm, 75, 76–77, 77, 112 Gaard af Halvor Ellefson. Sauk Co. Wis: Nord. Amer. 1878., 27, 28–29, 29, 31, 113 Residence of Gottfried Walder. Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co Wis., 117 Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879, 30–31, 31, 112 Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher. Town Honey Creek. Wis., 54, 57, 58–59, 59, 115 Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis., 68, 92–93, 93, 118 Residence of T. C. Peck. Sauk Co. Wis., 78–79, 79, 116 Schafer, Joseph, 122n16 Seifert, Elizabeth (Kraft), 19, 20, 24–25, 38, 64 Seifert, Paul, 7, 9, 11, 20, 36, 64 artistic style of, 4, 8, 9

Index

bird’s-eye-view maps’ influence on, 53 composition of works of, 65–73 “discovery” of, 21–23 early years of, 37 evolution of identity of, 24–25 fragility of works of, 75–77 immigration of, 37–38 known painting locations of, 86 legacy of, 99–100 life of, in Wisconsin, 19–21 obituary of, 122n9 origins of, 19 process of, 83–90 research on, 37–39 and rethinking rural artists, 2–3 and rural modernization, 5–6 vision of, 51–55 works August Lischeske farm, 106–107, 107, 115 Christof Orth or William Wesenberg, Jr. farm, 116 Christopher Shirk farm, 104–105, 105, 117 Clark Hickcox farm, 114 Farm Landscape, 113 farm of, 1–2, 1, 62–63, 63, 117 Farm Residence of Mr. J. B. Johnson Town of Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 115 Farm Scene near Gotham, 114 Farm scene with Ford vehicle, 113 Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis., 34–35, 35, 65–66, 112 Farm von Herrn J. Adolph Sprecher. Town Troy. Wis, 103, 108–109, 109, 117 Farm von Jakob Huber, Town Honey Creek, Sauk Co. Wis., 32–33, 33, 115 Farm von Mr. Jacob Gasser, In Town Honey

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Creek. Sauk Co. Wis. 1880., 60–61, 61, 113 Ferdinand Baumgarth farm, 75, 76–77, 77, 112 G. W. Foster farm, 113 Gaard af Halvor Ellefson. Sauk Co. Wis: Nord. Amer. 1878., 27, 28–29, 29, 31, 113 Gotham. 1893., 46–47, 47, 83, 113 Gotham church and parsonage, 114 Gutknecht farm, 114 Helene Valley Mills. Town Wyoming Iowa Co Wis. 1880, 44–45, 45, 66, 114 Hodgson farm, 114 Jacob Bennett farm, 80–81, 81, 112 Law’s Landing scene, 43, 48–49, 49, 84, 115 Lewis Pauls farm, 116 McNamer homestead, 116 Pierstorff farm, 116 Residence of E. R. Jones, 83 Residence of Gottfried Walder. Town Honey Creek. Sauk Co Wis., 117 Residence of Lemuel Cooper Plain Wis. By P. A. Seifert 1879, 30–31, 31, 112 Residence of Mr. Andrew Fritsch Eden, Iowa Co. Wis., 113 Residence of Mr Daniel Lewis. Town Dodgville, Iowa Co. Wis. 1881, 14–15, 15, 17, 68–70, 115 Residence of Mr E. R. Jones. Town Dodgeville, Wis. 1881, 11, 16–17, 17, 115 Residence of Mr. F. Hapgood 1879., 114

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Residence of Mr L Richardson 1880., 12–13, 13, 116 Residence of Mr. Martin Lutscher. Town Honey Creek. Wis., 54, 57, 58–59, 59, 115 Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis., 68, 92–93, 93, 118 Residence of T. C. Peck. Sauk Co. Wis., 78–79, 79, 116 Rohn family farm, 116 unknown farm scene, 91, 96–97, 97, 117 Wisconsin Farm Scene [Herman Wegner farm], 94–95, 96, 118 Shirk, Christopher, farm, 104–105, 105, 117 Shirk, Walter, 105 sketches, 83, 84, 85 skies, 91. See also clouds Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis., 68, 92–93, 93, 118 unknown farm scene, 91, 96–97, 97, 117 Wisconsin Farm Scene [Herman Wegner farm], 94–95, 96, 118 Sorg, Howard, 89 Sorg, John Adolph, 89 Sorg, John Edward, 89 Sorg, John Elwood, 87–89, 90 Sorg, Steven, 87 Stark, William F., 24–25, 122n14 Stiles, Elijah, 39–40 Stone, Lisa, 6 sun, 91, 93 Sylvanus J. Macy, 39 Taylor County McNamer homestead, 116 Tower Rock, 57, 59, 59, 61

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Troy Farm von der Familie Baumgarth. Town Troy Sauk Co. Wis., 34–35, 35, 65–66, 112 Farm von Herrn J. Adolph Sprecher. Town Troy. Wis, 103, 108–109, 109, 117 Residence of Mr Pierson Young. Town Troy. Wis., 68, 92–93, 93, 118 unknown farm scene, 91, 96–97, 97, 117

Valley Where the Bluebirds Sing, The (Hüpeden), 6 “View of the Residence of Mrs. D. H. Kelly, Buffalo Township, Union County, Penn’s” (Markert), 3 vision, of Paul Seifert, 51–55 Walder, Gottfried, residence, 117 Wegner, Fannie, 95 Wegner, Floyd, 95 Wesenberg, William, Jr., farm, 116 winter scenes, 16–17, 46–47 Wisconsin Farm Scene [Herman Wegner farm], 94–95, 96, 118 Wisconsin River Valley, 51, 101 Wyoming Helene Valley Mills. Town Wyoming Iowa Co Wis. 1880, 44–45, 45, 66, 114 Young, Julia (Cramer), 88 Young, Pierson, 87, 88 farm, 68, 87–90, 92–93, 93, 118