Little biographical information is available for Paul Frénzeny, most of what we know comes from the Harper's Weekly pictures he created. He probably was in Mexico in his early twenties, before he ended up in New York. He was in the United States by 1868 (28) when his first wood-cut illustrations began to appear in Harper's.

He probably had little formal art training because it is reported that while he was good at sketching, he didn't seem to have been trained in painting or working in other media. All his life he worked in wood-cut illustrations via pencil sketches.

Banishment of Winter
Harper's Weekly v14
22 April 1871
p.360

Street Arabs Taking a Foot Bath
Harper's Weekly v16
3 August 1872
p.604

An Artist in the Country
Harper's Weekly v16
24 August 1872
p.660

Horrors of the Mine
Harper's Weekly v17
31 May 1873
p.468

He began to work with Jules Tavernier in 1873 (33) when he began to jointly create pictures with Tavernier for Harper's. Toward the end of that year they went off on a year long assignment from Harper's to draw and send back pictures of the West. This assignment which took the two of them from New York, through Pennsylvania, down to Missouri.

They apparently crossed the Mississippi river at Hannibal, Missouri. From Hannibal, the pair traveled on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway across Missouri to Fort Scott and Parsons, Kansas. They proceeded on the same railroad across Indian territory to Denison, Tex., the terminus of the railroad. Construction of this line from, Hannibal to Denison had been completed only a few months before the arrival of Frénzeny and Tavernier.

After their visit at Denison, the artists turned northward across the Indian territory and eventually reached Wichita-probably accompanying a cattle drive at least part of the way. From Wichita the general route was west along the Santa Fe railroad through southern and western Kansas to the railroad terminus at Granada, Colorado.

By stage they then traveled to Pueblo, Colorado, and then by rail to Denver. They remained in Denver during the winter of 1873-1874,.

Then in the Spring they visited Fort Laramie in Wyoming territory, the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska. At this point them made a side trip to Salt Lake City. And finally they used the Union Pacific railroad to get to San Francisco.

It is not known how they worked together on a picture. Nor how they split the Harper payments. On the trip they produced 67 published Harper's Weekly woodcuts for which they were paid from $35 to $150 each depending on the size of printed image. They also sold sketches to local people.

Paul Frénzeny may have gone on ahead of Tavernier because the newly created Bohemian Club of San Francisco welcomed Paul, and voted him into membership on 4 August 1874, a month before Jules was made a member. This chronology of the western travels of Frénzeny/Tavernier is based on the reconstruction of the trip by Robert Taft described in the Kansas Historical Quarterly "The Pictorial Record of the Old West" February, 1946 (Vol. 14 No. 1). See the map below.

The pictures from this period in Harper's Weekly are jointy signed and/or jointly attributed.

United States Signal Service—
Watching the Storm
Fort Gibson,
Indian Territory
Harper's Weekly
21 March 1874
p.267

Fighting the Fire
Harper's Weekly v18
28 February 1874
p.192.

‘Busted!’—A Deserted Railroad Town in Kansas
Harper's Weekly v18
28 February 1874
p. 192

[Probably: Zarah, Barton County Kansas]

Bringing Home the Fifth Wife
Harper's Weekly v19
2 January 1875
p.4

Two Bits To See the Pappoose
Harper's Weekly v18
24 October 1874
p.880

[probably Ogden Utah ]

Chinese Fishermen in San Francisco Bay
Harper's Weekly v19
20 March 1875
p. 240.

He and Tavernier then stayed on the West Coast for several years. Tavernier moved to Monterey in 1874 and Paul moved with him. But they soon broke up and Paul moved back to San Francisco. Paul was active in the Bohemian Club and supported himself, in part, with Harper's pictures of San Francisco.

In this period after the cross-country Trip. Frenzeny began publishing alone again. Tavernier concentrated on producing and selling fine-art.

Paul stayed in San Francisco about five years then drifted down to Los Angeles, then through Mexico and Central America, then back up to New York. Travenier stayed about ten years in San Francisco and then went to Hawaii for another five, where he died.

The colored wood-cuts shown below were watercolored by people who appreciated the drawings, or commercially colored by art dealers, these colored versions were framed and hung as art—a poor-man's painting. Many are still available on the antiquities market for prices that range from $100 to $1,000 US dollars.

Nevada Silver Mine—
Changing the Shift
Harper's Weekly v21
25 August 1877
p.657

Holiday in China Town
Harper's Weekly v24
20 March 1880
p.188

(original black and white version)

Theatrical Performances in China-Town, San Francisco
Harper's Weekly v27
12 May1883
p.296

Snake-Charming and Religious Rites Among the Indians of Central America
Harper's Weekly v26
25 March 1882
p.184

Horse Race in a Sioux Indian Camp
about 1879
watercolor/paper;
Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, CA, US

Big Medicine Man
about 1875
Pencil, watercolor and gouache on blue-gray paper: 32×47 cm
Museum of Fine Art
Boston, MA, US

pub: Chalmers: Splendide Californie!

Data in the 1880 US Census indicates that Paul (age about 40) was married to a French woman, Allene, and was living in Washington, New Jersey. He continued to work for Harper's Weekly.

Dog Catching in New York
Harper's Weekly v26
15 July 1882
p.444

In the early 1880s Frenzeny disappears for a couple of years, then back in New York he publishes a couple of more pictures in Harper's Weekly showing scenes from Texas. Soon after that he joined the Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show.

The Chinese Question:
Amoor Cosacks Ride
in Manchuria to Port Arthur
The [London] Graphic?
14 May 1898