Charles Frederick Ulrich (1858-1908)

Charles Ulrich enrolled in the Munich Academy in 1875 where he studied the Old Master technique of exacting detail in realist painting. After returning to the United States in 1882, he exhibited the present work The Wood Engraver at the National Academy in New York, receiving a resounding and lasting approval from critics who considered the painting to be "his best." (Art Interchange, 1884) A New York Times review of the National Academy exhibition described the painting as "a picture of a woman at work before a window engraving a wood block. It is excellently painted both in figure and interior by Charles Frederick Ulrich." This debut painting signified a peak period of his career, after which point he continued producing a remarkable series of worker subjects for which he is best known.