Early Life, Family and Training
Charles Volkmar was born on August 21, 1841, in Baltimore, Maryland. He grew up in a house where the lines of a print or the texture of a canvas were part of the daily landscape. His grandfather worked as an engraver, and his father, trained in Dresden, spent his days as a portrait painter, etcher, and restorer. This lineage of hands accustomed to fine detail shaped the early years of his life.
His formal training began at the Maryland Institute, where he first learned to handle the tools of the trade. By his late teens, he had already become an accomplished etcher, finding a way to translate vision onto metal. The precision required for such work suggests a steady hand and a focused eye developed long before he ever reached Europe.
In 1861, a sudden accusation of being a Confederate sympathizer forced a quick departure from his home. This shift in circumstances led him away from the familiar streets of Baltimore and toward the continent. He left behind the life he knew in Maryland, moving toward a future that would take him far from his origins.
Artistic Activity in France
Volkmar arrived in France in 1861, staying through 1879. His time in Paris was spent moving between the study of form and the study of light. He spent time at the Jarden des Plantes and within government schools, where he focused on the mechanics of sculpting under Antoine-Louis Bayre. This training in three-dimensional modeling gave his later work a sense of weight and structure. He did not stay solely with the chisel and clay; he sought out the landscape as well.
The influence of the Barbizon school became a central part of his practice. He studied landscape painting under Joseph Henri Harpignies, absorbing a specific way of handling the brush to capture the softness of the natural world. His canvases from this period often focused on the quietude of the countryside. By the 1870s, his paintings had found their way into the Paris Salon, appearing among the works of his contemporaries in those formal exhibitions.
Ceramics and Later Career
By 1895, the focus of his hands shifted toward the tactile nature of clay. He began a collaboration in pottery with the artist Kate Cory. They operated a shared shop known as Volkmar and Cory Pottery, which they located in Queens, New York. This period saw him moving away from the canvas and toward the more physical demands of ceramic production.
In 1903, he established his own pottery business, Charles Volkmar & Son. This venture was based in Metuchen, New Jersey. His work in this field was noted enough that he became a member of both the Salmagundi and National Arts Clubs. He remained active in these circles until his death from pneumonia in Metuchen in 1914.
