Background
Ufer, Walter was born on July 22, 1876 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Son of Peter and Alvina (Mauseer) Ufer.
Ufer, Walter was born on July 22, 1876 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Son of Peter and Alvina (Mauseer) Ufer.
Graduate public schools, Louisville, 1891. Apprenticed to lithographer, Louisville, 1892. Student Royal Applied Art Schools (Dresden), 1895-1896, Royal Academy (Dresden), 1897-1898, The Art Institute of Chicago Chicago.
Student J. Francis Smith Art School (Chicago), 1901-1903 (gold medal, 1903), teacher same, 1904-1905.
His most notable work focuses on scenes of Native American life, particularly of the Pueblo Indians. After an apprenticeship as a lithographer, he went to Europe where he was a traveling journeyman. Like many of his fellow artists with ties to Indianapolis"s German-American community, he went to Germany to study.
He trained in Hamburg and Dresden.
When he returned to America, he worked as a printer in Chicago and taught school, and later took classes in fine arts After a brief time in Chicago, he returned to Munich in 1911 for further study as an artist.
Upon his return to the United States, he traveled to Taos in 1914. There he became one of the "Taos Ten", and associated with the Taos Society of Artists.
His New Mexico paintings are characterized by genre scenes of Native American life and landscapes executed in a high-keyed palette.
In the 1920s, his work garnered critical and commercial success. He showed at the Carnegie International, became an Academician of the National Academy of Design, and museums acquiring his work included the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, New Mexico Museum of Art, and the Indianapolis Museum of Artist
Member Boston Art Club, Modern Society Artists (Los Angeles).
Married Mary Monrad Frederiksen, May 5, 1905.