Carl Rungius · 1869–1959

Carl Rungius: a biography

Born near Berlin and trained at the Berlin academy, Carl Rungius came to America to hunt moose in 1894, settled in New York, and spent more than half a century painting North American big game in Wyoming, the Yukon and the Canadian Rockies.

Berlin

Carl Clemens Moritz Rungius was born on August 18, 1869, in Rixdorf, a village now part of Berlin, the son of a pastor. He was drawn to hunting and to animals from childhood. He studied at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1888 to 1890, but the curriculum did not suit him, and he spent much of his free time sketching at the Berlin Zoo and studying animal anatomy, including at a glue factory where carcasses could be examined.

America, Wyoming and the Yukon

In 1894 his uncle Clemens Fulda invited him to the United States to hunt moose in Maine. His painting Canada Moose, based partly on a diorama at the American Museum of Natural History, drew attention in New York, and in the summer of 1895 he hunted and sketched in Wyoming, where the game and the open country made a deep impression. He emigrated permanently in 1896 and made New York his home; he married his cousin Louise Fulda. For years he spent summers and autumns in northwest Wyoming, and he made painting and hunting trips to New Brunswick. In 1904 he joined the hunter and naturalist Charles Sheldon in the Yukon, and later illustrated Sheldon's book The Wilderness of the Upper Yukon.

Illustrator to easel painter

The conservation movement of the Theodore Roosevelt era created a large market for books and magazines on wildlife and hunting, and Rungius was much in demand as an illustrator. Around 1909 he gave up illustration to devote himself to easel painting. He joined the Salmagundi Club in 1907, was an early member of the Camp-Fire Club and was later elected to the Boone and Crockett Club. The National Academy of Design elected him an Associate in 1913 and a full Academician in 1920, and he won prizes at its exhibitions in the 1920s, including the Carnegie Prize in 1926.

Banff and the Canadian Rockies

In 1910 the Banff guide and outfitter Jimmy Simpson, having seen a reproduction of Rungius's Dall sheep painting Wary Game, invited him to hunt in the Canadian Rockies. The trip led to a lifelong attachment to the region and its bighorn sheep, mountain goats, grizzlies and moose. Rungius built a studio in Banff, which he called "The Paintbox," and from 1921 he worked there each year from spring to autumn, making charcoal and oil sketches in the mountains and wintering in New York.

Later years and legacy

In the 1950s Eric Harvie, founder of what became the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, acquired the contents of Rungius's Banff studio and, in 1958, of his New York studio. Rungius died in New York on October 21, 1959, and his ashes were scattered on Tunnel Mountain above Banff. His work is in collections including the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, which holds the largest public collection of his work in the United States and began a catalogue raisonné of his paintings in 2020, Glenbow in Calgary, which holds more than 2,500 of his works, and the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in the Netherlands.

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Sources

Written for carlrungius.com; facts were checked against the sources below.

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, "Carl Rungius papers, 1896–1995: Biographical Note." aaa.si.edu (accessed October 2026).
Glenbow, "Artist Profile: Carl Rungius." glenbow.org (accessed October 2026).
National Museum of Wildlife Art, "Carl Rungius Catalogue Raisonné" and "Carl Rungius Gallery." wildlifeart.org (accessed October 2026).
Boone and Crockett Club, "B&C Member Spotlight: Carl Rungius." boone-crockett.org (accessed October 2026).
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, "Carl Rungius." explore.whyte.org (accessed October 2026).
Wikipedia, "Carl Rungius." en.wikipedia.org (accessed October 2026).
Steven Stern Fine Arts, "Carl Rungius" artist page. californiapaintings.com (accessed October 2026).