thumb|Cincinnati from behind Newport Barracks, 1835

John Caspar Wild (or J.C. Wild in Switzerland.

Career

He moved to Paris, France. In 1832, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He later moved to St. Louis, Missouri. In summer 1844, he moved a final time, to Davenport, Iowa, a small town in the upper Mississippi River Valley.

Wild fell gravely ill with tuberculosis in the summer of 1846, and he was taken in by Davenport millinery businessman George L. Webb. Wild was laid to rest nearly on the banks of the river, which he had painted for years. Wild's grave site was unmarked for decades.

Notable collections

  • University of Pennsylvania, 1842, from collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia

Further reading

  • Reps, John William, and J. C. Wild. 2006. John Caspar Wild: painter and printmaker of nineteenth-century urban America. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press. Designed by Steve Hartman of Creativille, Inc. [https://web.archive.org/web/20081208220008/http://www.creativille.net/]
  • Wild, J. C., and Lewis Foulk Thomas. 1948. The valley of the Mississippi: illustrated in a series of views, accompanied with historical descriptions. St. Louis, Mo: Joseph Garnier. (this is a reprint; original edition published 1841–2)

References

  • John Cushman Abbott Exhibit Supplement includes a discussion of Wild and his book The Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated in a Series of Views, a slide show of illustrations from the book, and a downloadable pdf of the book.
  • Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951