Nantahala

Known as the “Painter of the Smokies,” Rudolph Frank Ingerle is most well-known for his vibrant, romantic landscapes. He was already an established artist with a degree from the Art Institute of Chicago when he visited North Carolina around 1920. His memories of the Austrian and Czech mountains from which his family immigrated gave him an affinity for the forests and the rural Appalachians who lived there. In fact, he called them “the finest Americans in the country.”

In the 1920s and early 1930s, the rise of the lumber and railroad industries threatened the natural beauty of Appalachia. Along with locals, travel writers, nature photographers, and motorists, Ingerle and other artists were instrumental in the campaigns to protect the natural beauty of the mountain range. An unlikely success in the face of industrialization, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was officially established in 1934.