Twists and turns in the life of Mississippi River painter Henry Lewis

From sailing down the Mississippi River while sketching on a boat to publishing a book of prints in Germany, the life of 19th-century American artist Henry Lewis has as many twists and turns as the scenes he painted. Lewis, who has two paintings of the Midwest on view at SLAM and many prints in the online collection, was born in England and later immigrated to the US with his family. He worked as a theater scene painter in St. Louis before achieving fame for his massive panorama of the Mississippi River in 1849. Popular with audiences during the 1840s and 1860s, moving panoramas, including Lewis’s, were like protofilms. These enormous paintings wrapped around two large dowels and then unscrolled from the left dowel to the right one, accompanied by narration explaining the scenes.

A self-taught artist, Lewis created his large panorama from detailed sketches of the Mississippi River. Many sources cite the works as measuring 1,325 feet by 12 feet, but others claim it may have been as long as 6,250 feet. Lewis sailed south from Minnesota in the summers of 1846–48 to capture scenes for the painting. He “fashioned by himself” a special sketching canoe for the trip, traveling many as 60 miles a day to draw different locations along the river, according to excerpts from his personal journal cited in the essay, “Henry Lewis’ Moving Panorama of the Mississippi River.”

After completing the journey, Lewis exhibited his panorama to captivated audiences in the US, Canada, and Europe. His large-scale canvas with vivid scenes from the Mississippi River was unrolled in front of an audience, giving the illusion of movement. The exhibition also featured narration and music, which was typical of panoramas displayed at the time.

Following the European part of the exhibition, Lewis settled in Düsseldorf, Germany, to study at the city’s famous art school. He brought along his sketches of the Mississippi River; the ones he used to create his widely acclaimed panorama. Lewis subsequently published a book with a collection of prints after these sketches in 1854 called The Valley of the Mississippi, Illustrated, or Das Illustrite Mississippithal. The book, which was printed by the German house Arnz & Company, included 80 depictions of different scenes along the river.

It could be said Lewis’s career reached a pinnacle with the publication of his book. However, his luck changed soon after. Arnz & Company went out of business, so only a few copies of the book sold in Germany. Some copies reached America, but they weren’t widely distributed. During this time, Lewis’s residence in Germany continued to reduce his stateside visibility and following. Once a prominent member of the American panoramic school, Lewis drifted out of the spotlight. He lived the rest of his life in Germany, planting firm roots in Düsseldorf’s thriving arts community.

Then, almost two decades after his death in 1923, people who knew about The Valley of the Mississippi, Illustrated, republished the book in Leipzig, Germany; and Chicago, citing its value as a pictorial record of the early American West. Thus began a revival of public interest in Lewis’s art. In the following years, the Missouri Historical Society and SLAM acquired several of his key works. The Missouri Historical Society holds Lewis’s drawings related to The Valley of the Mississippi, Illustrated, in a sketchbook that is available to view online.

At SLAM, a few Lewis paintings of the Midwest, A Street in Saint Louis and Saint Louis in 1846, are on view in Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield Gallery 337 and Gallery 336, respectively, while prints from The Valley of the Mississippi, Illustrated, can be found in the Museum’s online collection or requested for in-person viewing in the Study Room for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. The Museum’s Print Study Room also has seven of Lewis’s sketchbooks filled with drawings from the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s that visitors can view upon request.

Notably, the SLAM collection allows visitors to peruse lithographs that Lewis made after the 67 sketches originally published in his book, which depict key points along the upper and lower Mississippi River. Lewis produced the drawings in 1848 while sailing down the river for five weeks on a small boat with a crew including navigators, draftsmen, and a printer and correspondent. He was selective about subject matter because he was cognizant of the size of his future panorama, which needed to be a reasonable length so it could fit in the exhibition space and hold people’s attention.

As visitors can see from the prints, Lewis portrayed the river and its environs in a very authentic way that few, if any, artists had before. From Fort Snelling, Minnesota, where he embarked on his trip down the Mississippi; to the town of Louisiana, Missouri; and further south, Lewis captured the river’s picturesque qualities while documenting life at the time of Western expansion. Native American camps, thriving settlements, and bustling towns with steamboat—such as this one in Quincy, Illinois—were just a few of Lewis’s selected scenes, all of which contributed to his realistic and compelling portrayals of the region.

In creating his sketches and resulting panorama, Lewis helped bring a new type of art to the masses. Many people in the US in the 19th century couldn’t travel to cities where art was typically displayed. Panoramas like Lewis’s were like galleries on wheels, traveling to remote locations to give individuals the opportunity to experience art firsthand. For many rural residents or frontiers people, it was their first and only introduction to the pictorial arts. Thanks to Lewis’s sketches, resulting panorama, and book, Americans could explore a pivotal moment in history during westward expansion and for centuries to come.