artist, b. Prussia. He studied at the Royal Academy of Weimar. He moved to Milwaukee in 1886 to join a panoramist group as a specialist in the painting of horses. In 1887, Lorenz went to San Francisco to assist August Lahr in completing a Franco-Prussian war panorama. He then spent a year in Texas, where he became interested in painting cowboy and Indian scenes of the western plains. In 1888 he returned to Milwaukee, where he was a professor in the Milwaukee Art School and began working independently. A leading figure in western genre art, he left behind many canvases and hundreds of sketches made from Wisconsin scenes and from trips to the Dakotas and Montana. He exerted a strong influence on Wisconsin art and was the teacher of such prominent artists as Louis Mayer, George Raab, and Alexander Mueller (q.v.). P. Butts, Art in 'Wis. (Madison, 1936); Milwaukee Journal, Aug. 3, 1915; A. J. Aikens and L. A. Proctor, eds., Men of Progress. Wis. (Milwaukee, 1897) .

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Richard Lorenz National Guard Photographs for details.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]