biography of Antonion Zeno SHINDLER (1823-1899)

Birth place: Germany

Death place: Wash., DC

Profession: Painter of pastel portraits and landscapes; teacher; photographer

Studied: Paris, France

Exhibited: PAFA, 1852-63 (pastel portraits and scenes of Paris and London, as well as Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia.)

Work: NMAA; BMFA; Atwater Kent Mus.; Denver (CO) Public Library.

Comments: Around 1845, Shindler joined the party of ethnologist William Blackmore on an expedition to the Indian country in the U.S., where he painted Indian life. In the 1850s he settled in Phila., where he taught drawing and was a portrait draftsman. He moved to Wash., DC, around 1858, where he photographed Indians visiting the city and copied pictures and drawings from Army officers and Indian agents. He was in Chicago, when most of his possessions were destroyed by the fire of 1871. He was back in Phila. during the 1870s, and in Wash., DC in 1876, where he spent most of the rest of his life working as an artist at the Smithsonian Inst. Stokes credits to him a view of Reading (PA) of about 1834.

Sources: G&W; Rutledge, PA; Phila. CD 1853-60+; Panorama (Aug. 1946), 10; Stokes, Historical Prints; 7 Census (1850), Pa., LIII, 217. More recently, see Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery, 149; McMahan, Artists of Washington DC,