Ferdinand Burgdorff On Sale

A renowned Carmel, California artist, Ferdinand Burgdorff was an illustrator for Sunset magazine. His work was both realistic and romantic, conveying a sense of mystery and drama in his landscapes. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Burgdorff studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later in Paris with René Menard and Florence Esté. In 1907, he headed West with the intention of becoming a desert landscape painter. He lived in boxcars with railroad builders on the stretch of line between Yuma and Calexico and traveling by wagon or horseback, accompanied surveyors on many trips into the desert. Of this time he wrote: "There were such exciting things to see and paint, undisturbed by a single human within miles" (Widening Horizons).

Burgdorff also worked for a period in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he painted the sandy wastes near Albuquerque in the region known as the Sandia. He then moved to California where he was an illustrator for Sunset magazine, a new publication then. Many of the paintings he had made earlier were reproduced in this magazine. In California, Burgdorff first lived in Carmel where he was an active member of the Carmel Colony. He later settled in the nearby Pebble Beach, building a home on Rondo Road. In 1911, he took an exhibition of his desert paintings back to his hometown of Cleveland, and sold enough to finance a two-year trip around the world. His main objective was to see Greece and Egypt because they were ancient desert worlds. He also painted along the Nile, which reminded him of the Colorado River. When Burgdorff died, he was the oldest working artist on the Monterey Peninsula, having painted many coastal views and abandoned mining towns in pastel, oil and watercolor. From 1907–24, he made numerous painting trips to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.

It could be argued that cave walls were the canvases for the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict and elevate natural scenery through art, but there is a richer history to consider.

The Netherlands was home to landscapes as a major theme in painting as early as the 1500s, and ink-on-silk paintings in China featured mountains and large bodies of water as far back as the third century. Greeks created vast wall paintings that depicted landscapes and grandiose garden scenes, while in the late 15th century and early 16th century, landscapes were increasingly the subject of watercolor works by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo.

The popularity of religious paintings eventually declined altogether, and by the early 19th century, painters of classical landscapes took to painting out-of-doors (plein-air painting). Paintings of natural scenery were increasingly realistic but romanticized too. Into the 20th century, landscapes remained a major theme for many artists, and while the term “landscape painting” may call to mind images of lush, grassy fields and open seascapes, the genre is characterized by more variety, colors and diverse styles than you may think. Painters working in the photorealist style of landscape painting, for example, seek to create works so lifelike that you may confuse their paint for camera pixels. But if you’re shopping for art to outfit an important room, the work needs to be something with a bit of gravitas (and the right frame is important, too).

Adding a landscape painting to your home can introduce peace and serenity within the confines of your own space. (Some may think of it as an aspirational window of sorts rather than a canvas.) Abstract landscape paintings by the likes of Korean painter Seungyoon Choi or Georgia-based artist Katherine Sandoz, on the other hand, bring pops of color and movement into a room. These landscapes refuse to serve as a background. Elsewhere, Adam Straus’s technology-inspired paintings highlight how our extreme involvement with our devices has removed us from the glory of the world around us. Influenced by modern life and steeped in social commentary, Straus’s landscape paintings make us see our surroundings anew.

Whether you’re seeking works by the world’s most notable names or those authored by underground legends, find a vast collection of landscape paintings on 1stDibs.