While the majority of nineteenth century church decorations in North America were created for Roman Catholic churches, we find religious art works in Protestant houses of worship as well. Trinity Lutheran Church in Milwaukee still owns three lovely 1880 altar paintings by Friedrich W. Wehle of Milwaukee. These paintings are neither murals nor canvases. They were painted on a tripartite screen that is placed behind the altar during the four weeks before Christmas. The central panel depicts the Nativity scene with the shepherds and the Magi adoring the newborn Christ child. The left panel shows the angel appearing to the shepherds, and on the right panel the child is being presented in the Temple (Figure 89). These are dramatic renditions in the Italian Renaissance tradition and very different from Johann Schmitt's Nazarene style. Wehle placed his figures in a deep space and added dramatic lighting. Three other Wehle paintings, the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ hang above the altar during the remainder of the church year.

      Friedrich W. Wehle was born in Neu Jonsdorf, Saxony, in 1831 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1866. As a young man in Germany, he received some instruction in painting in Dresden. After his arrival in the U.S., he spent two years as a student of theology at Concordia College in St. Louis, but dropped out because of poor health. Before settling in Milwaukee in 1879, he lived in Quincy and Belleville, Illinois. Beside the altar panels for the Trinity Lutheran church in Milwaukee, Wehle painted a resurrection scene for the Trinity church in Freistadt, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, another Missouri Synod church.[16]

     Aside from individual German-American artists, who decorated Catholic and Protestant churches in the state of Wisconsin, there existed several firms providing services for churches, schools and convents. The firm of E. Brielmaier and Sons in Milwaukee made a specialty of designing such buildings and manufacturing all kinds of church furniture, altars, pulpits, even oil paintings for decorative purposes. The firm was established by Erhard Brielmaier, who was born in Germany in 1841, and died in Milwaukee in 1917. He came to the U.S. with his parents in 1850 and settled first in Cincinnati, where he learned the trade of altar building. He arrived in Milwaukee in 1873, and by 1881 employed more than a dozen men in his business. [17] An example of his work is the baptismal font at St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Milwaukee, WI (Figure 90). At least two of his sons, John and Alfons, became associated with their father. One of his daughters, Clothilda, became a successful Milwaukee artist. She was born in 1867 and died in 1915. Clothilda specialized in painting portraits as well as church murals. She did the paintings at the chapel of St. Francis Convent in Milwaukee that had been built by her father's firm. [18] She also traveled to fulfill commissions outside the city of Milwaukee. The Franciscan Church of the Sacred Heart in Indianapolis, Indiana, has treasured three of her murals: Annunciation, Nativity, and Resurrection. They date from 1911. Clothilda also painted St. Pascal and St. Margaret of Cortona for the Sacred Heart friary choir and two additional paintings for the church sanctuary: Queen of the Rosary and Christ, Friend of the Children. Clothilda had studied art in Munich and frequently collaborated with her brother Alfons on church frescoes [19]. The Indianapolis Church of the Sacred Heart was designed by the Franciscan Brother Adrian Wewer and constructed between 1883 and 1891 in the popular Gothic revival style. On Friday, April 27, 2001, a fire destroyed the sanctuary of the church. The Brielmaier paintings are lost forever. Efforts are under way to restore the church interior to its old beauty. However, it is unlikely that the murals can be recreated. Clothilda Brielmaier also worked in Quincy, Illinois, where the German Franciscans founded a monastery and college, dedicated to St. Francis Solanus. The artist painted two murals in the college church. They will be discussed in the chapter on Illinois German-American religious art.

     The nineteenth century Milwaukee church of St. Francis of Assisi has a fascinating history: In 1856 two secular priests came to Milwaukee from Switzerland to establish the Capuchin Order in North America. At first their foundation, St. Francis, was a monastery, then it became a parish in 1870, and in 1877 the church was consecrated. The Ludwig-Missionsverein had donated $200.00 for the building, and the firm of Erhard Brielmaier had built the altars and pulpits. The main attraction of the church sanctuary was a large fresco, The Triumph of Christianity, by Wilhelm Lamprecht[20] (Figure 91). The same artist also painted scenes of the life of St. Francis in the spandrels of the church and the altarpiece St. Anthony adoring the Christ child for the St. Anthony altar in the church. (Figure 92, Wilhelm Lamprecht, St. Francis instituting the Third Order, mural, 1877). In the 1895 Silver Jubilee publication of Milwaukee's St. Francis church, tribute is paid to Wilhelm Lamprecht, who is described as "the famous New York artist whose style resembles that of his celebrated German master Johann von Schraudolph in Munich."[21] All of Lamprecht's paintings still decorate the sanctuary of St. Francis. They were restored in 1985. The theme of the triumph of Christianity is very rare in the history of religious art and was handled with astounding creativity by Lamprecht. The figure of Christ is placed in the center of the fresco. To his left are groups of Old Testament prophets. To his right are the evangelists of the New Testament. (Figure 93, interior of St. Francis of Assisi church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin ).

     The most successful German-American painter and church decorator in Milwaukee was undoubtedly Conrad Schmitt, who was born in 1867 to German immigrant parents in a rural area west of Milwaukee. Conrad was educated in Catholic parochial schools and settled in Milwaukee in 1881. He served an apprenticeship as a church decorator, probably with the fresco painter Louis Loeffler. From 1891 to 1895 he was reportedly living in Wasau, Wisconsin, where he established a decorating business. By 1895 he was back in Milwaukee and joined with Edmund H. Bodden and Conrad A. Brockmueller to establish Associated Artists, a firm that specialized in providing murals for churches and courthouses. Conrad Schmitt eventually founded his own business, the Conrad Schmitt Studios. The Company still exists under that name.[22] Since the 1970's it has been located in the western Milwaukee suburb of New Berlin. The firm is the leading North American establishment for historic restoration of interiors. The majority of them are churches, such as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of Notre Dame University at South Bend in Indiana,(Figure 94,) and the Sacred Heart church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Other historical buildings that have been restored by the Conrad Schmitt Studio are New York's Radio City Music Hall, Boston's Wang Center, and the West Baden Spring Hotel in West Baden, Indiana. The artisans, associated with the Conrad Schmitt Studios, have kept alive European techniques of fresco painting, gilding, mosaics, and woodcarving.

     One other successful German-American Catholic church-decorating firm based in Milwaukee was A. Liebig and Co. An article in the 1898 publication entitled The Catholic Church in Wisconsin described the Liebig firm's artists as "men of unquestionable skill and ability, who have graduated from the best and most celebrated art schools in Europe. In addition to their technical skill, they have made sacred history their chief study and hence are able to go about their work in an intelligent and appreciative manner."[23] The same article discussed a new technique, introduced by the Liebig Co. fresco painters: "Besides the common water and oil colors, the usual method of decoration, the Liebig Company is now introducing a new process in regard to the use of color material known as the permanent tempera color, which as an economical and enduring force should become both popular and interesting with the public. This color is comparatively new in America, but in Europe has been universally adopted in public buildings, churches and other monumental buildings. Indeed, owing to its entirely different composition, it is not affected by dampness, rather growing firmer the longer it stands. In this respect it is regarded as even preferable to oil color."[24] A discussion of the technique of mural painting is very rare among nineteenth century German-American writers. If indeed the Liebig Co. of Milwaukee introduced tempera in their church paintings, this would have been a drastic innovation, since the earlier Covington artists like Johann Schmitt and Wilhelm Lamprecht used oil colors, a method preferred by the Nazarene painter Peter Cornelius for his Munich secular and ecclesiastical frescoes.

     Adolph Liebig was born 1848 in Prussia and had arrived in Milwaukee by 1872. There is no information available about his training as a painter. It is, however, known that he presided over his own fresco-painting firm in Milwaukee by 1893.[25]