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for Edward J. Kuntze
1826 - 1870
Edward J. Kuntze, a sculptor and occasional etcher, immigrated to America in 1852. It is probable he was the "Kuntz," resident in Newport, who contributed several "statuettes in bisquit" to the Rhode Island Art Association exhibition held in Providence in September 1854. He gave no address when his works were first shown in an Academy annual in the spring of the same year. He was working in Philadelphia in the mid-1850s but settled in New York in 1857. Three years later he went to London, returning to New York in 1863. The following year Kuntze made his second appearance in an Academy annual, and he was represented in the every annual thereafter until his death.
The subjects of Kuntze's sculptures seem to have been derived almost equally from his German heritage and his adoption of America; among his portrait busts and medallions, and statuettes: Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich von Schiller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A. B. Durand, and Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipator and Preserver of the Union. He had his more fanciful moments, however. His Puck Riding on a Grasshopper was so admired that an attempt was made to raise funds by public subscription to have it cast in bronze and placed in Central Park.
Kuntze died a few days before the Council confirmed his election to Associate by its formal acceptance of Eaton's portrait. At its next meeting the artist's passing was duly noted: "The Council desire to express their sense of his worth, as a conscientious, industrious, and talented artist; and as a man of most estimable and amiable character."
The subjects of Kuntze's sculptures seem to have been derived almost equally from his German heritage and his adoption of America; among his portrait busts and medallions, and statuettes: Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich von Schiller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A. B. Durand, and Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipator and Preserver of the Union. He had his more fanciful moments, however. His Puck Riding on a Grasshopper was so admired that an attempt was made to raise funds by public subscription to have it cast in bronze and placed in Central Park.
Kuntze died a few days before the Council confirmed his election to Associate by its formal acceptance of Eaton's portrait. At its next meeting the artist's passing was duly noted: "The Council desire to express their sense of his worth, as a conscientious, industrious, and talented artist; and as a man of most estimable and amiable character."
