Henry Ulke was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 photographer and portrait painter.

Biography

Henry Ulke was born in Frankenstein

Frankenstein, Saxony

Frankenstein is a municipality in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. About 1200 people live there...

, Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

, and studied painting in Breslau, and also in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 under Wach

Karl Wilhelm Wach

Karl Wilhelm Wach was a German painter.- Life :Wach was born in Berlin in 1787, studied art at the Berlin Academy of the Arts and was a pupil of painter Karl Kretschmar...

. For a time he was occupied in decorating the Royal Museum of Berlin, but became involved in the Revolution of 1848, and was compelled to leave his native land.

Henry and his brothers Julian and Lee moved from Germany to the United States in 1852. Henry worked in New York designing banknotes, then illustrations for Harper's

Harper's Weekly

Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...

 and Leslie's

Frank Leslie's Weekly

Frank Leslie's Weekly, later often known in short as Leslie's Weekly, was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1852 and continuing publication well into the 20th century. As implied by its name, it was published weekly, on Tuesdays. Its first editor was John Y. Foster...

 weeklies in Philadelphia from approximately 1853 to 1860. They settled in Washington D.C. in 1860, finding residence in the Petersen boarding house at 516 Tenth Street, NW, across the street from Ford's Theater, where President Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 was shot by John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...

 on April 14, 1865. It is presumed that Julian Ulke took a famous photo of the Petersen house room in which Lincoln died on the morning of April 15.

The brothers had a portrait studio in Washington, D.C. at 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., around the corner from their boarding house. For 40 years, Henry painted portraits of a series of American politicians, scientists and noteworthy individuals - some from his own photos. Portraits include Earls Elgin and Gray, Sir Frederick Bruce, Robert Kennicott

Robert Kennicott

Robert Kennicott was an American naturalist.-Biography:Kennicott was born in New Orleans and grew up in "West Northfield" , Illinois, a town in the prairie north of the then nascent city of Chicago....

, William Stimpson

William Stimpson

William Stimpson was a noted American scientist.- Biography :Stimpson was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Herbert Hathorne Stimpson and Mary Ann Devereau Brewer. The Stimpsons were of the old colonial and Revolutionary stock of Massachusetts, the earliest known member of the family being James...

, Edwin M. Stanton

Edwin M. Stanton

Edwin McMasters Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War from 1862–1865...

, Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...

, James G. Blaine

James G. Blaine

James Gillespie Blaine was a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State...

, Treasury Secretaries Crawford

William H. Crawford

William Harris Crawford was an American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1815 to 1816 and United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 to 1825, and was a candidate for President of the United States in 1824.-Political...

, Taney

Roger B. Taney

Roger Brooke Taney was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was the first Roman Catholic to hold that office or sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also the eleventh United States Attorney General. He is most...

, Bibb

George M. Bibb

George Mortimer Bibb was an American politician.Bibb was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, attended Hampden-Sydney College and graduated from the College of William & Mary, then studied law. He was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Virginia and Lexington, Kentucky...

, Chase

Salmon P. Chase

Salmon Portland Chase was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.Chase was one of the most prominent members...

, and Carlisle, Generals Grant, Rawlins, and Blair, as well as Samuel D. Ingham

Samuel D. Ingham

Samuel Delucenna Ingham was a U.S. Congressman and U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Andrew Jackson.-Early life and education:...

 (1893).

His New York Times obituary says, “Henry Ulke, whose portraits of Presidents and Cabinet Ministers at Washington gained for him the soubriquet of 'Painter of Presidents,' died ... as the result of a fall at his home... He was 89 years old. Mr. Ulke was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, and at the time of the assassination the dying President was carried into the famous Tenth Street house, where he was boarding. One of Mr. Ulke's best paintings was a portrait of President Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...

, which now hangs in the long gallery of the White House...”

Henry was a member of the Smithsonian Megatherium Club

Megatherium Club

The Megatherium Club was founded by William Stimpson. It was a group of Washington, D.C.-based scientists who were attracted to that city by the Smithsonian Institution's rapidly growing collection, from 1857 to 1866....

, and collected beetles. His beetle collection has been called “one of the largest and most perfect collections of the beetles of North America in existence.” Henry photographed Mary Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Ann Lincoln was the wife of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and was First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865.-Life before the White House:...

 in mourning after Willie Lincoln's

William Wallace Lincoln

William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln was the third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He died at the age of 11. He was named after Mary's brother-in-law Dr. William Wallace.- Final illness and death :...

 death.

External links