Known as “the Painter of Snow,” Walter Koeniger was the son of an architect, born in Germany in 1881.  From architecture, Walter turned to painting, while still in Germany.   He studied under Eugene Gustav Dücker and Eduard Karl Franz Gebhardt at the Düsseldorf Academy. 

Koeniger immigrated to the United States around 1910 and settled in Woodstock, New York in 1912, where he abandoned his earlier style of photographic realism in favor of a more painterly, expressive technique.  He concentrated on capturing the fleeting moods of nature during a period when the winter scene genre was rapidly rising in popularity.  Koeniger focused on views of the Catskill Mountains and wooded areas around Woodstock and Saugerties. 

His activities at Woodstock (where he died in 1943) are not well known; apparently he was not involved with the artists’ colony there.  He painted in broad, large strokes, rendering brilliant sunlight and glowing color harmonies, soft gradations on color in the sky, streams and forests.  The artist adapted the blue and purple shadows of the impressionist aesthetic. A plein-air painter, even in winter, Koeniger would reportedly delay the completion of a painting until the setting sun would add the proper tint of orange to the scene.   One historian said Koeniger had a “passion” for “frozen, snow-covered scenes of winter.”  His work was popular and was sometimes used on the covers of Literary Digest.  Later in his career, Koeniger maintained studios in both Woodstock and New York City.

Exhibited                                

National Academy of Design, 1926, 1929, 1930, 1931

Vose Galleries, Boston, 1926

Studied                                

Düsseldorf Academy with Dücker and Gebhardt                

Member                                

Salmagundi Club                            

Work

Arizona State University Art Museum

University of Arizona Museum of Art

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT

Delval Fine Arts Consortium, Lansdale, PA

Toledo Museum of Art

References

Falk (ed.), Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975

Mallett, Index of Artists, International–Biographical

McCann, Master Pieces, The Art of Jigsaw Puzzles

Opitz (ed.), Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers

Rodriguez Roque, Directions in American Painting 1875–1925

Shipp, American Art Colonies 1850–1930, A Guide to Original Art Colonies and Their Artists

Springville Museum of Art, Permanent Collections Catalog of Springville Museum of Art 

Creps, Biographical Encyclopedia of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers of the U. S.

Dunbier (ed.), The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists to March 2005

Falk (ed.), Annual Exhibition Record, National Academy of Design 1901-1950

Falk, Dictionary of Signatures & Monograms

Zellman, 300 Years of American Art

Falk (ed.), Who Was Who in American Art: Artists Active Between 1898-1947

Bermingham and Deeds, Paintings and Sculpture in the Permanent Collection

Springville Museum of Art, Permanent Collection Catalogue, Springville Museum of Art

Muller, “Koeniger, Painter of Snow,” International Studio 81, June 1925