Lake Park Rendering (Heine)
c. late 19th century
Lake Park in Milwaukee is an urban park located just north of downtown. It was finished in the late 1880’s and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who was also the designer of Central Park in New York.
This water color of Lake Park was done by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine. Heine was born in Germany in 1845. In 1861 he attended the Leipzig and Weimar Academies and worked as a book illustrator. He gained a great reputation as a field artist in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, and subsequently was invited to Milwaukee in 1885 to supervise the work of the American Panorama Co., as well as to contribute his own artistic talents to the panoramas that were so popular in that era. In 1888 he opened his own school of art in Milwaukee, teaching etching and water color techniques. Heine passed away in 1921, but his legacy in Milwaukee certainly lives on, most obviously through the Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors Society. Heine was a founding member of this organization, which was originally called the Society of Milwaukee Artists.
