View on Monocacy Creek at Bethlehem

In 1836, Grunewald was appointed drawing master at The Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies. "The Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies of the early nineteenth century would today be categorized as an elite boarding school with exceptionally high academic standards. Students were not only the daughters of Moravian missionaries, they also represented many of the first families of the Republic. In an era not noted for equality of opportunity in education for girls and boys, the curricula of the Moravian girls’ school at Bethlehem and the corresponding boys’ school at Nazareth were similar in almost every regard. Subjects included reading, writing (penmanship), arithmetic, grammar, geography, history and astronomy. German and French were optional, as was drawing, but plain sewing was taught as an essential skill for every woman. A variety of fancy needlework, for which Moravian women were celebrated, was the principal difference between the education of boys and girls."

Starting around Grunewald’s time, landscape sketches made directly from nature became part of student work. This was the first time the Moravian students were shown drawing directly from observation of nature in the landscape, and we know Grunewald "led sketching parties of students into the country to work, as he did, after nature."

"Grunewald’s wages as a teacher were carefully calculated on a per diem basis; his salary was docked on several occasions for travel to New York, a journey that took three days round trip. To further supplement his income, Grunewald painted portraits of students from time to time as well as portraits of other members of the community."

Many of his trips involved his participation in exhibitions. ". . . Gustav Grunewald had an extensive career that figured in the larger American art world of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Only months after arriving in the United States he exhibited a painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and in 1836 he began to exhibit at the National Academy of Design in New York." Initially, the art he displayed referenced European themes and scenes, but later, he exhibited his American landscapes. He was a member of the Apollo Art Association, later the American Art Union, "the most important nineteenth-century distributor of original paintings in the United States. Between 1838 and 1853 the Apollo Art Association/American Art Union organized exhibitions of original paintings, some of which were purchased and distributed by lottery."

Excerpts from: Blume, Peter F. "Gustav Grunewald 1805–1878." Allentown Art Museum Publication, 1992. Pages 9-14. "View on Monocacy Creek at Bethlehem" was not in the Allentown Art Museum retrospective.