William Louis Sonntag (1822-1900)
- William Louis Sonntag (1822-1900)
- Cumberland River
- Oil on canvas
- 24 x 40 inches
- Signed lower left
- William Louis Sonntag, Sr., born in East Liberty, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, was best known as a central figure in the Hudson River School of painting. At age twenty-one, despite objections from his parents, Sonntag moved to Cincinnati to continue his study of painting at the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts. Here he would have met fellow landscape painter Robert Scott Duncanson (1821–1872), with whom he developed a life-long friendship. Throughout his time in Cincinnati, Sonntag made trips through the Ohio River Valley and into the mountains in West Virginia and Kentucky. He also had his own studio and store front gallery, where his exhibitions caught the attention of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company, which commissioned the artist to paint landscapes along their railroad route for publicity purposes.
