Born in Ohio 1881, Burgdorff studied at the Cleveland School of Art and had classical trainingin Paris. Attracted by the works of Southwest artists, he traveled and painted throughout Arizonaand New Mexico. Following further studies in France with Emile-René Ménard and FlorenceEste, he returned to the United States and mounted a series of successful exhibitions inCleveland. These helped finance two more years of foreign travels, through Spain, Portugal,France, Italy, Egypt, Greece, North Africa, and the Philippines. Returning to America via the West Coast, he settled in Mill Valley. Encouraged by friends likewriter George Sterling to explore the Monterey Peninsula in 1907, “Ferdy” decided to establishhis studio in Carmel in 1911. As he recalls in his memoir:“In 1912 artist Mary DeNeale Morgan and I created business cards stating that our studioswould be open to the public on Saturday afternoons. We distributed these to the few Carmelshops operating at that time as well as the two hotels in town. Our ‘open studios’ were theearliest form of the idea that eventually became the Carmel Art Association in 1927.”In 1920 Burgdorff commissioned Bernard Maybeck to design a home and studio for him onRondo Road in Pebble Beach that he used as his base until the very end of his life. He becameone of the most active members of the prestigious Bohemian Club and the California Society ofEtchers as well as the Carmel Artist Colony, including early membership in the CAA. Burgdorffserved on the CAA’s Board of Directors from 1933 through 1945. He was also a generousbenefactor of local and international causes and war efforts including CAA’s building expansionproject in the late 1930s, the Red Cross and USO during World War II, Carmel High School, andCarmel’s Harrison Memorial Library. He even volunteered his time to conduct free sketchinglessons for servicemen stationed at Ft. Ord.Burgdorff is well known for his accomplished etchings as well as the pastel and watercolorillustrations he created for the then-new Sunset Magazine. Also working in oils, he developed anidiosyncratic style, capturing Monterey Peninsula scenes as an amalgam of realistic sensitivityand romantic, emotional elements, plus a proclivity for a touch of fantasy. He also made repeatedtrips across the desolate Southwest desert to paint the native Hopi and Navajo reservations,dramatic red rock canyons, and abandoned mining towns.His oils are distinguished by a strong sense of design, heavy atmospheric effects, historicreferences, and hyper-bright, saturated and contrasting color palettes that were far ahead of histime. During the 1950s he set out on a road trip to paint all thirty-two manned lighthouses alongthe California Coast, re-imagining them as they might have looked upon their respectivecompletions, decades earlier. He accomplished this goal with his hallmark bold, luminescent“colorist” affinity and mystical finesse.When this far-flung traveler and peripatetic exhibiting artist died on May 12, 1975 at age 94, hewas the Monterey Peninsula’s oldest professional working artist. Carmel Art Association stageda solo Memorial Show of his works in 1990.