Son of stonemason and painter Jakob Gauermann, Friedrich Gauermann studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where he attended the class for landscape drawing and painting under Josef Mößmer. Among his colleagues were his older brother Carl, Josef Höger, Wilhelm Pollak, Gustav Reinhold, Johann Fischbach, Josef Feid and Anton Hansch. With them he went on study trips to the Alpine region, first to the Salzkammergut region, Dresden, Munich, Salzburg and later to Venice, Milan and Tyrol. He was also in contact with a number of other painters and poets, for instance with Ferdinand Raimund and Johann Nestroy. He studied the old masters like Paulus Potter and Jakob van Ruysdael but kept his main focus on the study of nature. In 1836 he became a member of the Academy. Friedrich Gauermann depicted peasant genre scenes and mostly animal and hunting scenes, which clearly illustrate his ability to fully comprehend what he saw and to document with a high degree of virtuosity the greatness and order of the Creation. He spent the last years of his life on his farm in Miesenbach, where he kept wild animals for the purpose of studying them.
Literature
Rupert Feuchtmüller, Friedrich Gauermann. 1807 - 1862. Der Tier- und Landschaftsmaler des österreichischen Biedermeier, Vienna 1962; Rupert Feuchtmüller, Friedrich Gauermann, Rosenheim 1987; Gerbert Frodl, Wiener Malerei der Biedermeierzeit, Rosenheim 1987, pp. 249; Lexica: Wurzbach, Thieme-Becker, Boetticher, Bénézit, Müller-Singer, Busse Nr. 29473