- Term
Oscar Edmund Berninghaus
- Alternate Term
Berninghaus, Oscar Edmund
- Occupation/Role
artist, illustrator
- Nationality/Ethnicity
American
- Date
1874-1952
- Remarks
Oscar Edmund Berninghaus was born in 1874, in St. Louis, Missouri. His father ran a lithography business, which stimulated early interest in watercolor painting in Oscar and, by 1886, he was an accomplished watercolorist. He developed an interest in business and sold his works to tourists and newspapers. At sixteen, he had quit school and taken a job with Compton & Sons, a local lithography company, where he learned the technical details of engraving, color separation and printmaking. In 1893, he left Compton & Sons and joined Woodward and Tiernan, one of the largest printing concerns in the world at the time. Berninghaus developed a reputation as an artist and in 1899, he was given a commission by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad to produce promotional sketches of the Colorado and New Mexico landscapes. In 1915, he became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, along with his friend Bert Phillips and four other artists, although he continued to reside in St. Louis. In 1925\ he finally made the move to Taos, and, after the Society disbanded in 1927, he became active in the Taos art colony.