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WHD KOERNER
(1878-1938)
 

   William Henry Dethlef Koerner was born in Lunden, Germany, on November 19, 1878.  His family immigrated to the United States eventually settling in Clinton, Iowa.  In 1898, Koerner moved to Chicago to become a rapid-hand illustrator for the Chicago Tribune.  He studied at the Chicago Art Institute and at the Francis Smith Art Academy.  He became art editor for the United States Daily, and a literary magazine in Battle Creek Michigan.  In the early 1900’s, the Koerners moved to New York.  One of his first jobs there was to illustrate the 1904 St. Louis Exposition for Pilgrim Magazine.  From 1905-1907 he attended the Art Students League.    

   In 1907, Koener moved to Wilmington, Delaware to study with Howard Pyle.  From Pyle he received artistic and spiritual training.  Pyle emphasized the importance for his students to reflect on their own lives for inspiration.  He encouraged them to travel and experience firsthand that which they wanted to imitate in art.  Koener’s time with Pyle would prove to be the most influential for the artist’s style.  

   Between 1919 and 1922, Koerner illustrated for the Saturday Evening Post.  He created Western illustrations for two of Emerson Hough’s series:  THE COVERED WAGON and TRAVELING THE OLD TRAILS.  This shaped his career as an illustrator of the mystical Western frontier. In 1924 he had the opportunity to visit Montana and travel via the Santa Fe Railroad through out the Southwest ending up in California. He participated on several high mountain treks into Yellowstone Park and the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. 
Koerner died at the age of 59 after several years of ill health.