HADRA, IDA WEISSELBERG (1861-1885). Ida Weisselberg Hadra, portrait and landscape artist, was born in Castroville, Texas, on January 4, 1861, the daughter of German immigrants Gustav Frederick and Anna (von Groos) Weisselberg. In 1872 her father, a physician, took his family to Austin, where he had been appointed to a position in the State Lunatic Asylum (now Austin State Hospitalqv). This gave Ida the opportunity to study with the Austin portrait artist Ella Moss Duval.^qv In addition to a portrait of her father, she also painted A Neighbor and Portrait of a Child. When Mrs. Duval left Austin, Ida attended classes at the Texas Female Institute, where Hermann Lungkwitz was teaching landscape painting. Some of her landscapes include View of the Military Academy from East Austin, Seventh Street, Austin, Looking West, The Old Ira Evans Home, and The Old Duval Home. Ida Weisselberg married a physician, Berthold Ernest Hadra,^qv in 1882 and lived in San Antonio, where, until her death of peritonitis on November 4, 1885, she continued her studies with Mrs. Duval. Ida Hadra was buried in Austin. Her San Antonio works include Bridge Over the San Antonio River, San Antonio River Back of the Old Brewery, and two still-life paintings, The Hunter's Quest and Products of the Garden. Her works are in private collections.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pauline A. Pinckney, Painting in Texas: The Nineteenth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967). San Antonio Express, November 5, 1885.

Pauline A. Pinckney