A prominent painter and teacher, Karl Buehr spent the majority of his career in Chicago. However, Buehr is also associated with the second generation of American painters to live and work in Giverny, France during the early twentieth century. Indeed, Buehr's Giverny experience played a vital role in his aesthetic development, inspiring his move away from a subdued, tonal approach to the decorative Impressionism he used in his depictions of young women in outdoor settings. According to one Chicago critic, Karl Buehr's name was synonymous with 'sunshine on a summer day; clear, lovely women who smile from a fresh canvas, and a quantity of flowers."1
Buehr was born in Feverbach, Germany in 1866. However, while still a child, his family emigrated to the United States, settling in Chicago. Buehr received his artistic training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1888-1893), where he was considered one of the school's most outstanding students. During these years, Buehr established a reputation as a painter of figures and landscapes.
Buehr interrupted his studies in 1898 when he enlisted with the American military forces engaged in the Spanish-American War. However, he resumed his training in 1899, studying under the noted Munich-trained painter Frank Duveneck. In 1900 he went to Paris, where he spent two years studying under Raphael Collin at the Académie Julian.
Funded by his patron, Mrs. Lydia Coonley Ward, Buehr made a second trip abroad in 1905. He initially went to England, continuing his formal training at the London Art School. However, the lure of France remained strong; by 1908, Buehr was back in Paris, immersing himself in the rich and varied art life of the French capital. He spent the spring and summer of 1909 and 1910 in the Anglo-American art colony at Giverny, located about forty miles northwest of Paris. In 1912 and during the summer of 1913, he and his family lived in Ste. Genevieve, a small town near Giverny. During these years, Buehr was befriended by Frederick Frieseke and Richard Miller, the leading members of the second generation American Givernois whose roots were also in the Midwest. Influenced by their brightly-colored figure paintings, Buehr abandoned his penchant for conventional portraits, landscapes and peasant subjects and turned to decorative Impressionism. He soon became known for his renderings of the female figure in bright sunshine, which he exhibited at the Paris Salon and in the United States. Critics reacted favorably to his work. In addition to praising his vibrant brushwork and brilliant palette, they frequently compared his paintings to those of Richard Miller.
Buehr returned to Chicago in November of 1913 in order to take up a teaching position at the Art Institute. In the ensuing years, he and his wife, the miniature painter Mary G. Hess, spent their summers in Wyoming, New York.
Buehr exhibited his work in both the United States and abroad. In addition to contributing to numerous Paris Salons, he also participated in the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Throughout his career, Buehr was the recipient of numerous medals and prizes including medals at the St. Louis Exposition (1904), the Chicago Society of Artists (1914), the Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915), the Art Institute of Chicago (1919, 1920, 1922, 1925). Buehr was a member of the National Academy of Design, the Chicago Gallery Association and the Chicago Society of Artists.
Buehr died in Chicago in 1952. His paintings are represented in public and private collections throughout the United States. In the Midwest, he is represented in the Vanderpoel Collection in Chicago and in the collections of the University of Chicago and the Des Moines Historical Museum.
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1 Eleanor Jewett, "U. of C. Offers Series of 12 Art Lectures," Chicago Sunday Tribune, 19 October 1952.
