John Caspar Wild was an American painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and lithographer.

Wild was born in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and arrived in the U.S. in the 1830s.

He created early city views and landscapes of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, and Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

. He specialized in hand-colored lithographs. These views, particularly the Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated were some of the first depictions of the American West.

Further reading

• Reps, John William, and J. C. Wild. 2006. John Caspar Wild: painter and printmaker of nineteenth-century urban America. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press. ISBN1883982553 Designed by Steve Hartman of Creativille, Inc. http://www.creativille.net
• Wild, J. C., and Lewis Foulk Thomas. 1948. The valley of the Mississippi: illustrated in a series of views, accompanied with historical descriptions. St. Louis, Mo: Joseph Garnier. (this is a reprint; original edition published 1841-2)