Remembering Our Friend, Mort Künstler

For nearly three decades, Timber Ridge School has celebrated the holiday season with our annual collectible historic Christmas ornament fundraiser, a tradition that not only brings joy to families across the country but also directly benefits the young men who we serve.

Since 1996, the legendary American artist Mort Künstler has donated his artwork to our program, believing strongly in the work that we do in the lives of young men who need extra care and support. 

Mort sadly passed away at the age of 97 years old in February. In this first holiday season without our friend Mort, we look back on his life and the incredible art that he donated to the cause of Timber Ridge.

Mort’s Legacy

Before he was widely recognized as the premier painter of American history, Mort Künstler was born in August 1927 in Brooklyn, growing up during the tumultuous years of the Great Depression. In an exceedingly fitting twist of fate, Mort’s last name is derived from the German “künstler,” which translates to “artist” – an identity he would more than live up to. 

At the age of just two years old, Mort would impress his father – an amateur artist himself – and mother with his artistic sensibilities, often drawing still lifes while home sick from school. Mort started taking Saturday classes at the Brooklyn Museum, the official beginning of his lifelong journey as a painter. Mort pursued art at Abraham Lincoln High School and later Brooklyn College, where he also focused on athletics as a swimming team diver and track team hurdler. After earning sports awards at Brooklyn College, he received a basketball scholarship to attend UCLA and so moved to the West Coast.

After returning to New York to help out family following his father’s heart attack, Mort once again turned his focus back to art and enrolled in the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Inspired by the likes of Norman Rockwell, Mort took up work as a freelancer for adventure magazines, saying that he worked “12 hour days, 15 hour days, sometimes seven days a week” for the magazines, which helped develop the sense of storytelling his art would come to be known for. His work ethic paid off when he was commissioned by National Geographic to do a historic painting in 1965.

The painting was for a story about St. Augustine, Florida – the oldest European-established settlement in the continental United States and home of the famous Spanish fort Castillo de San Marcos. It was for this assignment that Mort first cut his teeth on deep research for his art. He traveled to Florida and met with historians to ensure that all details would be accurate in his painting. Throughout the 1970s, Mort continued his work with magazines, doing covers for publications of ever-increasing popularity such as Newsweek, MAD Magazine, and Reader’s Digest. He also illustrated movie posters, often leaning into his interest in historical and time period art for films like 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure and 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

Becoming America’s Premier Historical Artist

Around this time, art collectors started to notice Mort’s work, which eventually led to a show at the prestigious Hammer Galleries in New York City. His subsequent shows at Hammer helped cement Mort as one of the best and most in-demand historical artists in America. Mort started to focus on Civil War-centric art after a commission by CBS for their 1982 miniseries The Blue and the Gray. The Gettysburg Times later called him the “most collected Civil War artist in America,” with his work exhibited at the battlefield, as well as other historical art institutions. His Civil War exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art in Long Island drew 30,000 visitors in seven weeks – surpassing the previous Nassau attendance record, which had been held by a Picasso exhibit.

Mort’s artwork, often depicting the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, is marked by meticulous research and historically accurate details – uniforms, weapons, landscapes, and weather reports all working together to paint a timely picture of the depicted events. Mort could often be found walking the length of battlefields with historians and experts to identify landmarks for inclusion in his pieces and ensure the accuracy of all background elements. “I feel like I’m opening a window on a little part of history,” Mort said for the Asheville Citizen-Times in 1992, “What I try to do is create an image that will make you feel like you were there. I try to make it as accurate and as dramatic as possible.”

But Mort’s pieces are not just a rote exercise in historical realism – Mort’s art is also renowned for its storytelling power, capturing the human courage, sacrifice, and determination behind pivotal events in the history of the United States. Recent works covered more modern events as well, from an impressive collection on World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars to immigrants coming to Ellis Island, officially commissioned depictions of NASA’s Columbia shuttle, and much more. Throughout all the time periods, conflicts, and triumphs that Mort depicted, he maintained an eye for the great American spirit that has guided our history. Mort’s art is deeply infused with a sense of American pride and realism, making it an indispensable part of our national ethos.

Mort’s Legacy Lives On at Timber Ridge

This year, Timber Ridge’s centerpiece ornament features Mort’s art depicting George Washington’s Christmas evening crossing of the Delaware River in 1776, which led to victory in the pivotal Battle of Trenton in the Revolutionary War and changed the course of American history forever. It is available for purchase here.