Henry Peter Bosse - Biography

Biography

• 1844: Henry Peter Bosse is born November 13 at his father's estate, Sonnedorf in Prussian Saxony, where he spends his childhood. Little is known about Bosse's early life and education in Germany, although his surviving family asserts some connection to Abraham Bosse (1620-1676), the famous French engraver and topography theorist. Henry Peter Bosse claimed to be the grandson of Count August Neidhardt von Gneisenau.

• 1870: Henry Peter Bosse settles in Chicago upon emigrating to the United States. He finds employment in the stationery business. By the 1880s Bosse is employed as a draughtsman and cartographer with the Army Corps of Engineers at Rock Island, Illinois. Between 1882 and 1892 he photographs the upper Mississippi River with a passion for the land and the place.

• 1893: Henry Peter Bosse publishes his large format Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891 as bound albums of meticulous, blue cyanotypes. One of these albums came into the possession of Alexander Mackenzie, Army Corps Chief of Engineers. Each of the 169 Mackenzie album cyanotypes is printed using an oval mask, and each is titled by Bosse in hand-written ink.

• 1894-95: Henry Peter Bosse's album Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891 is shown at the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, a turning point in photographic history.