Peter Rindisbacher

born Canton of Bern, Switzerland, 1806; died St. Louis, Missouri, 1834

BiographySwiss immigrant Peter Rindisbacher was one of the earliest artists of European descent to record life on the American and Canadian frontiers. He was mostly self-taught with the exception of a brief stint with Swiss painter Jacob Weibel during his childhood in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland. Rindisbacher and his family immigrated to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Red River Colony in present-day Manitoba in 1821. The young artist recorded the entire journey through sketches, including the Inuit people who came to greet them at Resolution Island. The family remained at the Red River Colony until a flood drove them south to Wisconsin in 1826. Rindisbacher continued painting life on the Frontier, moving to St. Louis in 1829, where he produced drawings for the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine. He died in St. Louis at the age of 28. At least two of his works were featured as lithographs in McKenney and Hall’s History of the Indian Tribes of North America (1836–1844).

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