Godfrey Nicholas Frankenstein

(American, 1820-1873)

Godfrey Nicholas Frankenstein was born near Darmstadt, Germany in 1820.  He is recognized as a leading landscapist in Ohio during the mid to late-nineteenth century.  Frankenstein came to Cincinnati in 1831 with his family, all of whom became artists as well.  At the age of 13, he had his own sign-painting business.  In 1839 he exhibited a number of landscapes at the art academy, and he also opened a portrait studio.  Niagara Falls became his best-known subject.  Seventeen of his Niagara views were reproduced in Harper’s Row Monthly in August of 1853.  Frankenstein also painted landscapes of the area around Springfield, Ohio and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Studied

Apprenticed to a sign painter in Cincinnati in 1832

Member

Cincinnati Acad. FA (founder, 1838; pres. 1841)

Exhibited

Cincinnati Acad. FA, 1839-42; Soc. Promotion of Useful Knowledge; Artists Fund Soc., at PAFA, 1842-43; NAD, 1847-54; Western Art Union; AAU, 1849

Work

Cincinnati Art Museum

References

G&W; Martin, "The City of Springfield"; Cist, Cincinnati in 1841; Rutledge, PA; Cowdrey, AA & AAU; Cowdrey, NAD; Oakes, Scenery of the White Mountains, repro.; Cincinnati CD 1840-1849; Springfield CD 1852, 1863, 1873; Cist (1851); Cist (1859); N.Y. Herald; Public Ledger; Cincinnati Daily Gazette; Harper’s New Monthly Magazine; Ford, History of Cincinnati; Ohio State Arch. and Hist, Quarterly; Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery; Cincinnati Painters of the Golden Age; William Coyle, The Frankenstein Family in Springfield; Gerdts, Art Across America