Mort Künstler

Künstler takes a month or two to complete a painting, with many selling for over $100,000. Limited edition prints often sell out quickly. The American Print Gallery's limited edition of 4,150 of Moonlight and Magnolias was sold out in three weeks after publication. By 2015, Künstler had painted more than 350 Civil War subjects. He painted his final Civil War painting in 2015, depicting the end of the war, titled "LaGrange vs. LaGrange."

His battle of Gettysburg painting, titled “High Water Mark,” was unveiled at the Gettysburg Battlefield Museum on the 125th anniversary of that climactic confrontation. The original was reproduced with 750,000 limited-edition prints, all of which sold out after two months. But Künstler also painted individual soldiers in periods of personal crisis, as he did of Stonewall Jackson after Jackson learned that a close friend's 5-year-old daughter had died.

Künstler devoted two months of research with the aid of military experts and historians, besides visiting the location himself, before completing the painting in 2011, titled “Washington's Crossing.” Among the inaccuracies Künstler corrected was the fact that Washington would not have been able to stand in a rowboat in daylight during a snowstorm, since it would have capsized. Nor would there be small icebergs in the water or the flag shown in the painting to have been used, since it was not adopted until the following year.

His exhibition at the Nassau County Museum, which lasted seven weeks, attracted more than 30,000 visitors, surpassing the previous attendance record set by a Picasso exhibit. The success of that exhibit led the museum to hold a second one-man exhibit of his work in 2006.

His focus on that war led to him having the first one-man Civil War exhibitions at venues such as the Gettysburg National Battlefield, New York's Nassau County Museum of Art in 1998, the North Carolina Museum of History, Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy and other centers of art and history. They included images of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg,

In 1998, his paintings were exhibited at The North Carolina Museum of Art and at other U.S. museums, including the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, and the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.

In preparation for his 1992 painting, “The Gunner and the Colonel,” for instance, he researched the exact uniforms the soldier's wore and even the weather on that day, to learn which way the wind was blowing so the flags were unfurled in the right direction. With each new painting, Künstler says he takes on the role of a historian:

Among the eight books featuring his work, is the 1986 coffee-table book The American Spirit: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, which contains nearly 200 images and commentary written by historian Henry Steele Commager. An updated edition of The American Spirit was published in 1994.

Collections of Künstler's work are published as limited-edition prints, and his artistic output places him at the forefront of contemporary historical realism. NASA made him their official artist for the Space Shuttle Columbia. In 1982, CBS-TV had him do a painting for the 3-part mini-series The Blue and the Gray, and in 1993 a one-hour television special, Images of the Civil War - The Paintings of Mort Künstler, was shown on the A&E TV network. He has received numerous honors and awards, and at least nine books are dedicated to featuring his artwork. Some experts see him as the next Norman Rockwell.

In 1982, after getting a commission from CBS-TV to do a painting for the 3-part mini-series, The Blue and the Gray (televised November 1982,) Künstler's interest turned towards the Civil War. By 1988 he was concentrating almost entirely on Civil War subjects, which eventually made him the “most collected Civil War artist in America.”

While many of his early magazine illustrations were for public entertainment, Künstler eventually began creating military art. In 1977, his first major gallery exhibition brought new attention to his talents as a historical artist. By the 1980s he was acclaimed as America's foremost Civil War artist, and would eventually create over 350 Civil War paintings alone. Some of his paintings have changed opinions about the accuracy of early famous paintings by others, such as Emmanuel Leutze's famous Washington Crossing the Delaware. Besides his Civil War paintings, he created historical art of the American Revolution through the Korean and Vietnam wars, along with paintings of World War II. He painted historical events such as the Oklahoma Land Rush and new immigrants on Ellis Island.

He illustrated a number of movie posters for adventure films, such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). In 1975 Künstler created the illustration for a MAD Magazine back cover depicting women's liberation; several issues later, he crafted a front cover which parodied the movie Jaws

In the 1970s, Künstler painted covers for Newsweek, Reader's Digest and other magazines, although the bulk of his work during this period came from doing advertising art. He also did the box covers for Aurora models.

By the early 1970s, his paintings were attracting the attention of serious art collectors, which led him to begin retaining the reproduction rights to his original paintings. In 1975 he submitted a number of paintings to galleries, all of which sold, to his surprise. In 1977 his military art drew attention from even more important galleries, which made him widely recognized as an accurate historical artist.

He received his first assignment to do a historic painting from National Geographic magazine in 1965. He was to paint an illustration for a story about the history of St. Augustine, Florida. He traveled to Florida, spent an afternoon with the two National Park Service historians at the National Historic Site “Castillo de San Marcos” to learn whatever he could, before beginning. Künstler's later historical paintings would also rely on collaboration with experts who would guide and provide him with the historic facts he needed before beginning.

Künstler began his career in the 1950s as a freelance artist, illustrating paperback book covers and men's adventure magazines. In 1965 he was commissioned by National Geographic to create what became his first historic painting. He also created posters for movies such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. And by the 1970s he was painting covers for Newsweek, Reader's Digest, and other magazines, with the bulk of his work during that period in advertising art.

After graduating from Pratt he worked as a freelance artist in New York, where he tried to get assignments from book and magazine publishers. That goal became difficult at the time, which led him to work instead as an apprentice at a studio, where he ran errands, cleaned up and touched up paintings by other artists. Künstler wanted to be a professional illustrator, but discovered that the early 1950s was a bad time to enter the field, since photography and television were replacing the need for artists. And the few magazines that still relied on artists were folding.

However, he did find a niche market as a freelancer for adventure magazines, which still appreciated his art: “Fortunately for me and other artists, some of them, like the men’s adventure magazines, would still prefer having paintings made for their covers and interior illustrations.” He continued doing those throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. Although to make ends meet he had to live with his parents who supported him during this early period: “I worked 12 hour days, 15 hour days, sometimes seven days a week. Almost always six days a week, from nine o’clock in the morning to ten or eleven at night.”

Künstler began working full-time as a freelance artist, illustrating magazine covers and paperback fiction adventure books, typically oriented toward men, such as Sports Afield, Outdoor Life, and Stag. Künstler credits the experience gained from illustrating men’s adventure magazines in the 1950s and 1960s with teaching him how to compose and tell a story, which he says prepared him for his later work.

Mort Künstler (born August 28, 1927) is an American artist known for his illustrative paintings of historical events, especially of the American Civil War. He was a child prodigy, who, with encouragement from his parents, became a skilled artist by the time he was twelve. Today he is considered the "best-known and most respected historical artist in the country."

Künstler was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927 and raised there during the Great Depression. His parents had Polish and Austrian roots and were of Jewish heritage. Their name derived from the German word "künstler," which means "artist." His great-grandfather was given that name by the Tsar of Russia as thanks after he created a carving of him when he ruled Germany.

Some of his paintings have revised opinions of many about the accuracy of earlier paintings by others. One of Kunstler's more recent paintings has, according to recent historians, corrected some obvious inaccuracies of one America's most famous, the 1851 painting by Emmanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, depicting Washington's 1776 surprise attack on the 30,000 German soldiers who were fighting for the British.