Kern, Richard Hovenden

Richard Hovenden Kern (1821 - October 27, 1853) was an American artist and explorer of the American West. Born in Philadelphia, Kern's two brothers, Benjamin (1818 - March 1849), a physician, and Edward (c. 1822 - November 25, 1863), an artist and topographer, were also important figures in the exploration and early artistic depictions of the American West in the years immediately after the Mexican-American War. All three brothers had received artistic training in their youth, with Richard working as a drawing instructor from a young age and exhibiting landscape and figure studies beginning in 1840. All three brothers were attracted to the American West and were members of John C. Fremont's ill-fated fourth expedition in 1848 - 1849, in which Benjamin Kern and the mountain man 'Old Bill' Williams were killed by Ute Indians amid a tense period of fighting between the Utes and U.S. troops. Richard and Edward Kern remained in New Mexico to work for the Corps of Topographical Engineers and joined several exploratory expeditions, producing maps as well as some of the earliest American illustrations of the life of the Indians of the newly American territory. In 1853, Edward joined the expedition of Lieutenant John Pope (later a top Union general in the Civil War) to survey a route between Santa Fe and Ft. Leavenworth. Meanwhile, Richard Kern joined the Gunnison–Beckwith Expedition surveying potential routes for a Pacific railroad (the Pacific Railroad Survey). While near Sevier Lake in today's Utah, a group of Gunnison's men, including Gunnison himself and Richard Kern, were attacked by Pahvants (Ute) Indians and killed. The Kern River and later Kern County, California, were named in honor of the brothers, particularly Edward, who had discovered the river on Fremont's third expedition in 1845. Some of Richard Kern's sketches appeared as lithographs in congressional reports and the published, multi-volume report on the Pacific Railroad Surveys. Still, many did not, with a portion later redone as paintings by John Mix Stanley (1814-1872). A biography of Kern by David J. Weber was published in 1985 by the Amon Carter Museum, titled Richard H. Kern: Expeditionary Artist in the Far Southwest, 1848-1853.