Rudolf Cronau

Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau (21 January 1855 – 27 October 1939) was a German-American painter, illustrator and journalist.

Rudolf Cronau was well known in Germany for his illustrations, articles and books about the American West.

Early life

Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau was born in Solingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Prussia (Germany) on 21 January 1855, the only son of Rudolf Cronau, tax official by Helene Wilhelmine, née Waldeck. He attended between 1866 and 1869 the public school (höhere Bürgerschule) at Solingen. In 1870 Cronau was accepted into the Royal Academy of Art in Düsseldorf receiving formal art training, among others from renowned Andreas Achenbach. For a time he maintained an art studio at Düsseldorf. In 1877 he relocated to Leipzig and began working for Die Gartenlaube, an illustrated magazine. Cronau landed the job as their correspondent to the United States and sailed on the vessel "Oder" from Bremen, Germany reaching New York City on 17 January 1881.

Career

Cronau contributed a series of articles and illustrations on the subject of life in the United States. In the fall of 1881 he journeyed to Fort Randall in Dakota Territory where he would meet and befriend Sitting Bull, then a prisoner of war at that post. Cronau was sympathetic to the Indian's plight, causing him to remain nearly half a year in the territory documenting and illustrating the Sioux.

Most of Rudolf Cronau's artistic work from that period is in pencil, some in pen, and there are a few watercolors. Some of his drawings were transferred into collotypes, a photo printing process using gelatin. After Cronau returned to Germany in 1883, he published 50 collotypes in a book about his American visit entitled "Von Wunderland zu Wunderland".