The Official Mort Kunstler Website

(Alexandria, Virginia) Civil War artist Mort Künstler has received the prestigious Henry Timrod Southern Culture Award from the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, an international historical association composed of descendants of the Southern officer corps during the War Between the States. Kunstler was awarded the honor in recognition of his recent book, The Confederate Spirit: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, which features many of his images from the Civil War and features a narrative by Civil War historian Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. The award also cited one of Künstler's recent artworks, The High Command, which depicts a scene at the Confederate White House in Richmond on July 13, 1861.

"The Henry Timrod Southern Culture Award is given for outstanding contributions toward the understanding, appreciation and explanation of our Southern arts and letters," says Richard B. Abell, chairman of the Henry Timrod Southern Culture Awards Committee. "The two highest national awards presented by the Military Order of the Stars and Bars are the Douglas Southall Freeman Award for History and the Henry Timrod Southern Culture Award. The committee for that award unanimously accepted Mr. Künstler's nomination after careful consideration and evaluation." The award is named in honor of Henry Timrod, the celebrated 19th century Southern poet and journalist known as the "poet laureate of the Confederacy."

Mort Künstler, acclaimed in the nation's art circles as "America's premier historical artist," has specialized in painting scenes from the War Between the States since 1988, and is heralded as the country's "most-collected Civil War artist." His best-selling book, Gettysburg: The Art of Mort Künstler - which features a historical text by Pulitzer Prize winning historian James McPherson - was the official companion volume to the Gettysburg motion picture.

"This is an exceptional experience for me," says Künstler. "I realize that the Henry Timrod Southern Culture Award is a unique honor. I have grown to have so much respect for the generation of Americans who endured the Civil War, and to have my work recognized by the descendants of the officers who set such an example of courage and sacrifice in that conflict is very meaningful and very humbling."

L-R: Honorable Richard B. Abell, Chairman, Military
Order of the Stars and Bars; Mort Künstler recipient of
the Henry Timrod Southern Culture Award; Scott
Bowden and William Ward, co-recipients of Douglas
Southall Freeman Award.

Mort Künstler's limited edition fine art Civil War prints are displayed in countless homes, offices and institutions throughout America. His originals are represented by Hammer Galleries, the prestigious New York City art gallery. "Künstler's reputation as a painter is based on his exceptional technical ability as well as the authenticity of his pictures," says Hammer's Richard Lynch. "In addition, each picture is beautifully staged and executed. The vivid color of his paintings is yet another aspect of his ability to convey drama in paint and canvas."

Künstler has been honored by unprecedented one-man Civil War art exhibitions at the Gettysburg National Battlefield, New York's Nassau County Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of History, Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy and other distinguished centers of art and history. A seven-week exhibition of his work at New York's Nassau County Museum of Art drew more than 40,000 visitors and surpassed the attendance record established by a Picasso exhibition.

A series of exceptionally popular books - The Confederate Spirit, Images of the Civil War, Gettysburg, Legends in Gray and others - have showcased his Civil War art, and have helped established a unique genre of Civil War literature.

"He is the foremost Civil War artist of our time, if not of all time, because of his devotion to truth and detail in history," observes Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr., the dean of American Civil War historians. "To study his paintings is simply to see history alive." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson concurs. "Of all the artists working in the Civil War field," he observes, "none captures the human element, the aura of leadership, the sense of being there and sharing in the drama, quite like Mort Künstler."