The Etcher

“A worthy resurrection of a little-known artist.”—Publishers Weekly

This is the remarkable story of Oskar Stoessel, a gifted Austrian portraitist who arrived in America as a penniless refugee—and soon found himself painting icons such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Supreme Court Justices, and the first director of the National Gallery of Art. Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and richly illustrated, this definitive biography brings a forgotten master back into the spotlight.

“Who was Oskar Stoessel?” a Supreme Court justice asked the author, Bryan A. Garner, as they stood in front of one of the remarkable portraits bearing Stoessel’s signature. That question started a search in which Garner first discovered the notable fact that in the 1940s Stoessel had etched portraits for the entire U.S. Supreme Court.

This account has been gleaned, over many years of research, from library archives of the eminent people whose portraits Stoessel etched; from contemporaneous newspapers; from museum archives in Europe and America; from small stashes of Oskar’s work in European and American art galleries; from official government documents; and from the files of Oskar’s only known living relative. Stoessel’s story, as it emerges from these disparate sources, becomes a magnificent biography.