Louis Choris

[1] Louis Choris was born in Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (now Dnipro, Ukraine) to German-Russian parents on March 22, 1795.

[1] In 1816, he visited the Pacific and the west coast of North America on board the Russian expeditionary ship Rurik, serving as an artist with the Romanzoff expedition under the command of Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue, which was tasked with exploring a northwest passage.

After the voyage of the Rurik, Choris went to Paris where he issued a portfolio of his drawings in lithographic reproduction and studied in the ateliers of Gerard and Regnault.

Choris worked extensively in pastels and documented the Ohlone people in the missions of San Francisco, California in 1816.

Choris left France in 1827 for South America and was killed by robbers on March 22, 1828, en route to Vera Cruz, Mexico.

Louis Choris, lithograph by Joseph Langlumé after a self-portrait of Choris
The Russian "Rurik" sets anchor near Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea in order to load food and equipment for the expedition to the Chukchi Sea in the north. Drawing by Louis Choris in 1817.