A brief biography of Ernest Hupeden, from the Kohler Foundation website:
"Little is known about the self-taught painter Ernest Hupeden. Born in Germany and educated at a German University, he began painting while imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. The man who committed the crime -- embezzlement at the bank where Hupeden had worked -- confessed on his deathbed, and Hupeden was freed. He fled to the United States in 1878.
"For several years he worked throughout southern Wisconsin, often exchanging his paintings for lodging and meals. In addition to painting murals inside homes and on the outside of barns and other buildings, Hupeden often painted portraits and landscapes on plates and bottles.
Sometime in the early 1900s, Hupeden was found dead in a snow bank in nearby Hillsboro, Wisconsin. He is buried in Richland Center cemetery. While art historians have continued to search for additional information about this gifted traveling artist, only a few of his works have been found."