Artist Introduction: (22 September 1831 Holstein, Germany - 1905) was a German-born artist who worked mostly in the United States.
Brandt was born near Hamburg, in Holstein, Germany. His father and grandfather were physicians in Hamburg. His father taught him drawing at the age of seven, and he subsequently studied in the principal galleries of Europe. He served in the First War of Schleswig (1848-1850), between Germany and Denmark.
He came to the United States in 1852. He painted several portraits previous to 1864, and in that year built his studio in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, but lived in Europe from 1865 until 1869. He was chosen a national academician in 1872, and in 1883 was elected first director of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah, Georgia, where he resided in winter. At Telfair he offered art instruction and oversaw art acquisitions, including plaster casts, thus transforming a family mansion into a cultural institution.
An oil painting, The Berry Pickers, showing a boy (sitting, berry collecting bucket beside him) and a younger child (standing, holding a berry collecting bucket) on a rocky stream bank with bushy foliage to the right and billowing clouds above.