CARL CHRISTIAN BRENNER (1838-1888)

A native of Lauterecken, Bavaria, Carl Christian Brenner was noted for his landscapes and genre paintings. As a youth he demonstrated sufficient artistic talent to be offered admission to the Munich Art Academy. However, instead of securing academic training he was trained by his father as a glazier. In 1853, at the age of fifteen he immigrated to the United States, landing first at New Orleans. He worked as a sign painter and glazier in that city for a few years but then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where made his home for the remainder of his life. In 1863 Brenner painted a panoramic view of Civil War scenes for the Masonic Hall of Louisville.

In the 1870s he began to devote more of his energies to landscape painting. He exhibited landscapes in the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the Louisville Industrial Exposition of 1879. He became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1877 and participated in its activities until 1886. In 1884 he ventured to the Rocky Mountains in search of outdoor vistas. Brenner's most representative works were landscapes of scenes in Louisville and its vicinity. His son, Carolus Brenner (1865-1929) was also a Louisville artist.


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CARL CHRISTIAN BRENNER (1838–1888)

A native of Lauterecken, Bavaria, in southwest Germany, Carl Christian Brenner is noted for his landscapes and genre paintings. As a youth, he demonstrated sufficient artistic talent and was offered admission to the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. However, Brenner's father insisted he decline the offer and instead be trained as a glazier. Brenner immigrated with his extensive family to the United States, landing first at New Orleans in 1854. He worked as a carpenter, sign painter, and glazier in that city for a few years and around 1860 moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he made his home for the remainder of his life. Working from his adopted city, Brenner seemed to demonstrate success in the fine arts when he painted a panoramic view of Civil War scenes for the Masonic Hall of Louisville in 1863. However, two years later he continued to advertise “sign and ornamental painting; banners and regimental colors.”
In the 1870s, Brenner began to devote his energies to landscape painting and exhibiting, creating many lush, detailed views of the parks, rivers and forests around Louisville and the Cumberland mountains, for which he became well known and especially beloved locally. Decades later a newspaper columnist wrote, “If you grew up in Louisville, a Brenner painting on the wall is as much a part of your pleasant childhood as a rose-back sofa in the parlor or the fire of cannel coal that burned in grandma’s grate.”

Brenner frequently used beech trees to frame his quiet, tonalist vistas. Like paintings by other post-Civil War landscapists working in the South such as Joseph Meeker and Andrew Melrose, Brenner’s canvases lack the presence of humanity. He also traveled west to paint views of the plains states, as well as Colorado, California, Washington, and Oregon. Many of his landscapes were reproduced as etchings, reflecting his popularity.
Brenner exhibited landscapes at the Louisville Industrial Exposition of 1874 and the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. He participated regularly in annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design from 1877 to 1886 and in those of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1881 to 1885. His work is in the collections of the Corcoran Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, St. Louis Museum of Art, Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, and Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.

The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina
thejohnsoncollection.org

Carl C. Brenner, was born in Lauterecken, Germany, August 10, 1838. His father, Frederick Brenner, was a wine merchant and gave his son such education as the schools of his village afforded. Brenner was taught drawing there, and showed such a decided talent for art that his instructor gave him extra lessons and helped him gain entrance to the Munich School of Art. Unfortunately Brenner's father refused to let him attend.

Undaunted, Brenner came to Louisville, Kentucky in 1853 and began his career as a sign painter. Many years would pass before Brenner turned once again to fine art. Brenner loved nature and was fond of rambling the fields and forests surrounding Louisville.

In 1871 he began his career as a landscape artist. His first painting of distinction was a canvas depicting beech trees. Brenner obtained great success in Louisville, and exhibited at local and national art galleries, such as the Corcoran in Washington.

Brenner explored the varying faces of all nature's seasons, and particularly enjoyed painting the beech woods of Kentucky. He married Ann Glass in 1864 and had six children. His son Carolus Brenner inherited his artistic talent. Carl Brenner died in Louisville in 1888.