biography of William KURTZ (1833-1904)

Birth place: Germany

Addresses: Far Rockaway, NY

Profession: Photographer, painter

Exhibited: Centennial Expo., Philadelphia, 1876 (prize); NAD, 1865-82.

Work: New York Hist. Soc.

Comments: Kurtz came to the U.S. before 1861. Early in his career he worked on crayon portraits but soon became one of the most popular portrait photographers of the 19th-century. He produced thousands of portraits of prominent people at his Madison Square studio, and, in 1892, was the first to perfect a color halftone printing process, the results of which were evident in his exhibition at the New York Soc. Amateur Photographers in 1894.