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  • Biography

    P. L. Hohnstedt (Peter Lanz) (1872 - 1957)

    PETER LANZ HOHNSTEDT was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he received his early art training from Frank Duveneck. About 1914, Hohnstedt moved to New Orleans, where he was asked to do a painting for the Delgado Museum. The results were immediate and profitable. A wealthy man provided him with a room on his yacht so he could find greater opportunity to visit and study the swamp areas of Louisiana. Hohnstedt and artist Clarence Millet painted together in Louisiana and Mississippi. In the mid 1920s, he also painted in Seattle, Washington and exhibited with the Seattle Fine Arts Society. Hohnstedt moved to Comfort, Texas in 1928 and had a studio in San Antonio. Later Hohnstedt moved his home and studio to downtown Comfort, Texas, where his studio was open daily to visitors. His guest book included visitors from around the country. Peter Hohnstedt preserved on canvas many of the beautiful surroundings of Comfort, Texas in the heart of the Hill Country. His paintings included the twisting oaks, cypress and hillsides surrounding the small community. He exhibited at the Witte Museum (Edgar B. Davis Competition) in 1929 and won two awards, with such competition as Dawson Dawson- Watson, E. Martin Hennings, O.E. Berninghaus, Jose Arpa and a host of others. He continued to exhibit throughout the 30's and 40's with several one-man shows. His preferred medium for his landscapes was oil. Occasionally his name appears as Holmstedt, Hnstedt, as well as other versions.  

    Born in Urbana, Ohio, and reared in Cincinnati, Hohnstedt was largely self-taught save for brief periods of study with Frank K. Duvenick and Victor Casinelli in Cincinnati. Hohnstedt moved in 1906 to Memphis, Tennessee, where he made a living refinishing floors; about 1917 he moved to New Orleans. There he received several commissions to paint well-known landmarks and scenes along the Blood, Pearl, and Tickfaw rivers. He maintained a studio in the Vieux Carre and exhibited in the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, including a one-man exhibition.

    In the 1920s, Hohnstedt worked in Los Angeles and Seattle, where he executed several commissions for universities and public buildings. He came to San Antonio in 1929 for the Edgar B. Davis competition of the year, winning prizes of $2,500 and $750. He remained in the San Antonio area, living first in Leon Springs and then in a downtown hotel. Following surgery in the early 1940s, he settled on a farm six miles from Comfort in Kendall County. Hohnstedt painted in the surrounding countryside, in Mexico, and in the Big Bend and Pecos River areas. His Big Bend paintings included a series of eleven canvases purchased in 1933 by the Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio. They were executed when he accompanied an expedition to the Big Bend, sponsored by the Witte and the Southwest
    Texas Archeological Society, to investigate the cave dwelling of native peoples in the area. Hohnstedt died in Comfort of a heart attack and buried in the Comfort Cemetery.  

    Exhibitions: Art Association of New Orleans (1919); Southern State Art League Annual Exhibition (1928-1929, 1939-1940); Edgar B. Davis Competition, San Antonio (1929 prizes); Annual State Fair of Texas Exposition, Dallas (1929); Annual Texas Cotton Palace Exposition, Waco (1929); San Antonio Local Artists Annual Exhibition 91930, 1932, 1938, 1940, 1948); Annual Texas Artist Exhibition, Fort Worth (1930-31, 1934-1937; Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio 1933 and 1936); Southwest Texas Scenes (1933); Legacies of Native America and Spain in Texas and the Southwest (1990), Art for History's Sake: The Texas Collection of the Witte Museum (1993), Witte Museum, San Antonio; Pabst Galleries,, San Antonio (1934); Special Texas Exhibition, University of Texas Institute of Texas Cultures, San Antonio (1972) Texas Seen/Texas Made, San Antonio Museum of Art (1986); Painters of Texas 1900-1950, Museums of Abilene (1989); Looking at the Land: Early Texas Painters, 1850-1950, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts (190); Survey of Texas Artists 1890-1990, Longview Museum and Arts Center (1991); Galveston Art League (One-man); Issac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans (one-man); Los Angeles and Seattle.

    Collections: Stark Museum of Art, Orange; Witte Museum and Hawthorne Junior High School, San Antonio; San Antonio Art League; Little Rock (Arkansas Art Association; Seattle High School

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