Emanuel Leutze

Emanuel Leutze was born in Württemberg and grew up in Philadelphia, where he painted portraits as a teenager to support his family. In 1840 he returned to Germany to study at the Düsseldorf academy and stayed nearly twenty years, helping many visiting American artists. There he painted Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851), hoping to encourage Europe's liberal reformers after the failed revolutions of 1848. Back in America he painted the mural Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way in the Capitol.