Carl Ernst Morgenstern was a German landscape painter.
Morgenstern's father Christian E. B. Morgenstern was also a landscape painter at the court of Ludwig I of Bavaria. He received his first lessons from him. His grandfather was a miniature painter.

The Munich miniature painter Carl Restallino (1776-1864) was his foster father and teacher for a time; other teachers included Josef Schertel (1810-1869), Eduard Schleich and Theodor Kotsch. He completed his studies by traveling to France, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.

He married Charlotte, daughter of the landscape painter Schertel, who died of tuberculosis in Bad Aibling in 1881. He divorced his second wife Amélie von Dall'Armi from Starnberg in 1894. Shortly afterwards, he married his student Elisabeth Reche from Breslau, who died in February 1914. His son, the poet Christian Morgenstern, born in 1871, was the result of his marriage to Charlotte Schertel. In 1890, he moved to Wolfshau, south of Krummhübel.

In 1883 he was appointed professor at the School of Arts and Crafts in Breslau. He took over the newly established class for landscape painting, where - under the influence of the Barbizon School - he introduced open-air painting into the curriculum. Three years later, he also took over the management of an etching class. Morgenstern worked as a teacher at the school until 1913.

The professor chose Krummhübel as his place of residence and had a house built on the Blagnitz (Płomnica) in today's Skłodowska Street No. 1. In 1913, he set up a foundation together with Elisabeth Morgenstern. Morgenstern died in this house shortly before reaching the age of 81.