Ferdinand Burgdorff

Ferdinand Burgdorff, (November 29, 1881 – May 12, 1975), also known as Ferdy, was an American etcher, painter, and printmaker. He was nationally known for his role as a landscape painter of the Monterey Peninsula, Yosemite, and the desert Southwest. He was one of the earliest artists that came to the art colony in Carmel-by-the-Sea. He was an illustrator for Sunset Magazine. His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Naval Postgraduate School, De Young Museum, Monterey Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Early life
Burgdorff was born on November 29, 1881, in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, Frederick Burgdorff, was a watchmaker from Hamburg, Germany, while his mother Ida Burgdorff, was of Prussian descent. He attended the Cleveland School of Art in Ohio. While in school, his interest was in all things related to art and nature, with a particular focus on Western American Art. He held admiration for the works of painter Frederic Remington and the South Western landscapes by Fernand Lungren. Influenced by their work, he departed Cleveland to explore the Southwest. He traveled and painted across Arizona and New Mexico.

Burgdorff underwent military training in Marin County for the U.S. Army during World War I. However, due to the timely conclusion of the war, he never served on the active front lines. Throughout World War II, he donated numerous canvases to the USO, Red Cross nurses' quarters, and various hospitals. Additionally, he gifted his painting of the Yosemite Valley to the destroyer tender U.S.S. Yosemite.

Carmel (1907-1912)


In 1907, Burgdorff first encountered the Monterey Peninsula through an introduction by poet and writer George Sterling, at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. He attended the annual "Spring Jinks" at the Bohemian Grove. Soon after his arrival to the art colony in Carmel-by-the-Sea, he became an active member of the community. During this period, Burgdorff emerged as an important painter in the art colony, joining the ranks of Sydney Yard, M. De Neale Morgan, George Bellows, Arthur Hill Gilbert, Jo Mora, William Keith, and Chris Jorgensen.

Burgdorff worked as an illustrator for the newly established Sunset magazine. Numerous paintings from his earlier collection found their way into the magazine. From 1908 to 1924, his designs were on the cover of what became a national magazine.

Between 1906 and 1908, Burgdorff traveled through Arizona, Europe, and California, painting landscape. His artwork captured the attention of San Francisco's art critics. On March 14, 1909, Lucy B. Jerome, a critic from The San Francisco Call wrote a review of Burgdorff's art: "The work of Ferdinand Burgdorff, a young Cleveland painter, is compelling interest and attention from the local art world in a marked degree. Burgdorff is in his early twenties, but the three exquisitely toned water colors displayed at the exhibition of the Bohemian Club last week evince mature qualities. These three pictures were readily sold, and the 20 or more which the artist intends taking to Portland this week to place on exhibition give indications of rare talent." Under the guidance of Charles S. Aiken, editor of Sunset magazine, Burgdorff exhibited forty to fifty canvases in Portland, Oregon, garnering considerable attention. The Pines, Point Lobos entry found a buyer, praised as "an exquisite fantasy picturing a dark, witchlike tree on the edge of a gloomy mass of hill with a fairy glow of yellow suffusing tree, hill and sea." That August he exhibited at the Schussler Brothers Gallery of San Francisco. Lucy Jerome from The San Francisco Call stated: "six most fairylike and charming small paintings, three water colors and three oils. The one picturing Carmel bay on a starlight night is one of the most charming things seen in a long while."

Two months later, Burgdorff exhibited eight oils at the Vickery, Atkins & Torrey's Gallery in San Francisco. In November 1909, his artwork was exhibited at the Newton J. Tharp Memorial Exhibition in the California Club in San Francisco. In early 1910, Burgdorff presented consecutive solo exhibitions at two San Francisco galleries, Rabjohn & Morcom and Vickery's. A string of reviews by Margaret Doyle in The San Francisco Call expressed her enthusiasm. The first review on January 2 had a positive reception: "A number of delightfully delicate and ethereal water colors and oils in the softest of tones and colorings, the work of Ferdinand Burgdorff, have been sent from Pacific Grove and are on view--Burgdorff is doing excellent work that promises big and interesting things for the future. Moreover, it is absolutely original, and is seen and painted with the truest appreciation of the beauties of nature in her tenderest moods."

In 1910, Burgdorff volunteered his time at the Forest Theater, an amphitheater in Carmel. He was one of the founding members of the theater and contributed to designing the stage sets for the production of David at the Forest Theater on July 9, 1910. In October 1921 he acted in Carmel's Serra Pageant.

From 1909 to 1924, Burgdorff showcased his art in eight annual exhibitions at the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club. In July 1912, Burgdorff exhibited and raffled, at one dollar a ticket, one of his paintings titled Point Lobos, at the Arts and Crafts Club. Burgdorff exhibited at the Seventh (1913), Fifteenth (1921), Seventeenth (1923), and Eighteenth (1924) Annual Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Club. At the Seventeenth Exhibition he showed the painting titled Patriarch Cypress, and at the Eighteenth Exhibition he exhibited Southward.

Between 1908 and 1928, his collection of paintings, featuring titles like Monterey Pines, Scene in Mexico, Dry Camp, Abandoned Road, Parthenon in Sunset Glow, and From Gold to Violet, were included in the Del Monte Art Gallery's offerings. There is a fresco in the Herrmann Hall's Tower Room at the Naval Postgraduate School (the old Hotel Del Monte), called The Witch Tree. The tree is part of a small grove of native cypress trees that includes the Ghost Tree and the Lone Cypress. He did Cypress Through Fog in 1923, which is in the permanent collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Burgdorff was a member of the Carmel Art Association (CAA) that supported artists exhibitions and the promotion of their artwork. In 1933, he was elected onto its board of directors. He actively participated in the Twentieth Exhibition in December and remained a continuous member of the CAA board until the mid-1940s.

Travels (1907–1924)
Throughout much of 1906, Burgdorff embarked on informal travels and studies across northern Europe. His oil painting, A Woman in a Folk Dress Knitting, originating from this period, showcased Burgdorff's early embrace of the vibrant palette that would later become his signature style. From 1907 to 1924, Burgdorff embarked on multiple journeys to the Southwestern deserts, encompassing visits to the Hopi and Navajo reservations as well as the Grand Canyon. He joined railroad crews and surveyors, venturing into uninhabited desert regions to capture and preserve unspoiled landscapes. In 1924, he painted Spanish Caravelle which is in the permanent collection at the De Young Museum.

New Mexico (1907-1909)


In 1907, Burgdorff traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico, aspiring to specialize as a painter of desert landscapes over the more conventional aspen and adobe themes that were popular at the time. Burgdorff was commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad company to make an oil painting of San Francisco Peaks in north central Arizona. This painting featured an Indian sporting a flat-topped hat and long tan leggings in a postcard and for their publication, Indians of the Southwest. He also painted near Albuquerque within the Sandia Mountains.

His stay in the area involved residing in boxcars alongside railroad builders along the stretch of line between Yuma, Arizona, and Calexico, California. His modes of travel included wagons or horseback, often joining surveyors on numerous journeys into the desert. Reflecting on this period, he wrote, "There were captivating sights to behold and capture on canvas, untouched by any human presence for miles." One of his first paintings wasPueblo Indian done in 1908.

In February 1910, The San Francisco Examiner reported Burgdorff's return from his outdoor ventures in the desert and seaside. He prepared to exhibit thirty new paintings from the Arizona's desert to the shores along Monterey Bay. The exhibition was slated for Vickery's gallery in San Francisco, scheduled from March 1 to March 15, 1910. The San Francisco Examiner said: "The canvases show much progress in technique since the picturesque artist first invaded the realism of Bohemia: but he has not abated in his daring color tones or in the broad sweep of his effects."

In September 1910, Burgdorff embarked on a journey to the Navajo and Hopi reservations alongside Lundgren, returning to his Carmel studio by mid-December to ready himself for a significant San Francisco exhibition. On April 3, 1911, he debuted the spring season at Vickery's, presenting twenty-five canvases that prompted this reaction from Katherine C. Prosser, the art critic at the San Francisco Call. "Burgdorff's work is growing; with each new output there is an added quality, and he is one of the coming great painters. 'At Sunrise' is among the most beautiful of the lot. Looking across the Rio Grande river, one sees the Manzano Mountains silhouetted against the early morning sky. The rich purple of the hills is brought out with clean cut distinctness against the golden glow which foretells the approach of dawn."

During September 1923, John Wetherill guided Burgdorff on a pack trip to visit the cliff house Betatakin, which currently forms part of the Navajo National Monument. Subsequently, Burgdorff rendered an image of Betatakin in the Wetherill guest book.

Two-year global expedition (1911-1913)


By 1911, Burgdorff returned to his native Cleveland, showcasing an exhibition of his desert-themed paintings. The show was so successful the proceeds financed an extensive two-year global expedition encompassing France, Italy, Egypt, Greece, and the Philippines. Commencing in Paris, he studied under French painter Émile-René Ménard and American painter Florence Esté, followed by his exploration of Italy and three months in Greece. His travels took him through Egypt and onward to Asia, spending six months in the Philippines before journeying through China and Japan on his homeward route. One of his main objectives was to see the ancient desert landscapes of Greece and Egypt.

In November 1913, while in Manila, he faced financial constraints and resorted to taking on the role of a night watchman aboard the United States Army transport ship USAT Thomas to navigate his way back to San Francisco.

In April 1914, Burgdorff made his way back to San Francisco for a showcase at Vickery's, as noted by Michael Williams from The San Francisco Examiner. "Greece, Italy, Egypt and California are the lands from which the artist has taken his scenes--These pictures are all new most of them being the product of a recent trip about the world--this present exhibition some of the finest work--and it is very fine at its best--are the pictures of Greece, especially The Temple of Nike."

Grand Canyon and Hopi Reservation in Arizona (1907-1924)


Between 1907 and 1924, Burgdorff embarked on numerous painting expeditions to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. He was the first painter to create copper etchings of the Grand Canyon and was also the first to fly over the canyon by airplane.

During October 1908, Burgdorff accompanied landscape artist Ferdinand Lundgren on a sketching expedition through Arizona's deserts. Among his sketches from this journey, he captured a scene in pencil at Redlands, California. In 1924, accompanied by cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton, he attended the snake dance at the Hopi Villages in Walpi and Oraibi. Subsequently, they resided at Grandview in the Grand Canyon for a duration of three months.

In August 1925, Burgdorff went with painters Ray Strong, Ira Remsen, and Frank Van Sloun for a two-month sketching trip to Grand Canyon, Kayenta and Flagstaff, Arizona. There they met printmaker Ernest Haskell and the landscape painter Jimmy Swinnerton.

Yosemite (1917-1966)
Between 1917 and 1934, Burgdorff made several trips to Yosemite National Park. In 1934, he accepted a commission to paint the dioramas backgrounds illustrating six life zones at the Yosemite Museum. Collaborating with the museum's preparator's group in Berkeley, he worked under the guidance of Park Naturalist Ansel Hall.

Between 1932 and 1936, Burgdorff dedicated part of the summer and autumn seasons to painting in the Valley. Additionally, he painted Tioga Pass during winter, capturing the High Sierra peaks set against a blue sky. Other spots he painted were Winter Scene, Tuolumne Meadows (1934).

Burgdorff traveled from his home in Pebble Beach to Yosemite in October 1941. He made several paintings of the area including Yosemite Chapel (1945), Yosemite Falls (1947), Rapids on Merced River (1948), Sentinel Peak (1966), and 'Sentinel Rock'' (1947).

Carmel Highlands, Mill Valley, Pebble Beach
In 1909, Burgdorff rented a studio-gallery space at the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club in Carmel, which he occupied until he moved to the Carmel Highlands in 1911. Despite settling in the Carmel Highlands, he kept a mailing address at San Francisco's Bohemian Club and held membership at New York's Salmagundi Club. Between 1917 and 1920 he listed his address in Mill Valley. Encouraged by acquaintances, the following year, he returned to the Monterey Peninsula.

In 1922, he built his home and studio on Ronda Road in Pebble Beach that was designed by architect Bernard Maybeck. The residence had tall ceilings, a spacious north-facing window, and a stone fireplace. He shared this home with his sister Sophie for the remainder of his days.

Later years (1934-1965)


In 1934, Jo Mora and Burgdorff shared quarters at San Francisco's Canterbury Hotel, dedicating seven months to designing and painting seven lobby panels inspired by themes from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

In April 1958, Burgdorff's artwork was featured in an exhibition held at the California Historical Society in San Francisco. Then, in both July 1961 and July 1965, his oil paintings were showcased in individual exhibitions at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California.

Death and legacy
Burgdorff remained an actively engaged artist until his death on May 12, 1975, at the Monterey County Hospital, at the age of 94. At the time of his death, Burgdorff was the eldest active artist on the Monterey Peninsula.

Burgdorff's legacy endured, with the Carmel Art Association hosting a dedicated solo exhibition of his work in August 1990. A month long show of 120 works by Burgdorff was held starting August 4 at the Carmel Art Association. Examples of his artwork reside within the permanent collections listed below.

Selected exhibitions
• Hotel Del Monte Art Gallery (1907)

• Carmel Arts and Crafts Club (1912-1924).

• Bohemian Club (1909-1950s)

• Schussler Brothers Gallery of San Francisco (1909, 1918)

• Vickery, Atkins & Torrey Gallery in San Francisco (1909)

• California Club in San Francisco (1909)

• Rabjohn & Morcom (1910)

• De Young Museum (1915)

• Palace of Fine Arts (1919)

• California Society of Etchers (1923-1940s)

• California State Fair (1926-1930s)

• Gump's (1930)

• Courvoisier Gallery (1931)

• Monterey County Fair (1937, 1940)

• Art Institute of Chicago (1939-1940)

• Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-1940)

Permanent collections
• Santa Fe Railway Collection

• Harrison Memorial Library (Carmel)

• Yosemite Museum (dioramas)

• Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey)

• California Historical Society

• De Young Museum

• Springville Museum of Art

• Cleveland Museum of Art

• Oakland Museum of California

• Fort Ord (Monterey)

• Ross General Hospital (San Rafael)

• Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula

• Monterey Museum of Art

• National Park Service