A proponent of the Munich Style of bold, slashing brush-work and strong chiaroscuro, Joseph Frank Currier was from Boston, Massachusetts but from 1870 to 1898, spent most of his time living in Germany. He became a leader of an American art colony, which had begun as followers of Cincinnati painter Frank Duveneck. Previous to that, Currier studied in Antwerp and Paris and then settled in Munich after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.

As a student in Munich 1870 to 1872, he became a strong proponent of the Munich realism that was taught German artist Wilhelm Leibl, who in turn had been heavily influenced by Gustave Courbet, the great French realist. Leibl and his immediate followers, which included Frank Duveneck and William Me...