Theodore Wendel

THEODORE WENDEL True Notes of American Impressionism

THEODORE WENDEL

2

3

THEODORE WENDEL True Notes of American Impressionism laurene buckley introduction by william h. gerdts

T H E A R T I S T B O O K F O U N D AT I O N NORTH ADAMS

CONTENTS

Preface 11 laurene buckley Light and Color in Northeastern Massachusetts william h. gerdts chapter 1 The Early Years

19

chapter 2 Study and Travel Abroad

23

chapter 3 Cincinnati and Newport

29

chapter 4 Paris and Giverny

35

chapter 5 Boston and Gloucester chapter 6 Honeymoon Abroad

45

57

chapter 7 Ipswich Village and Ties to Boston and Gloucester chapter 8 Lower Farm, Ipswich

77

chapter 9 Upper Farm, Ipswich

83

chapter 10 A Rare Spirit Plates

91

101

Acknowledgments Chronology

153

155 157

Awards and Collections Exhibition History

159

Selected Bibliography Index

15

165

167

Photography Credits

171

63

Theodore Wendel painting daughter Mary, Upper Farm, Ipswich, ca. 1915.

PREFACE

T

he story of Theodore Wendel’s reintroduction to the American public is one of a unique artistic legacy placed on hold for nearly a century. In 1937, John I. H. Baur, then curator of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, wrote to the artist, assuming he was still alive: “I should like very much to obtain some further information concerning the important role which you played as a founder of Impressionism in this country.”1 Unfortunately, the artist had died in 1932, and the letter was “lost among bits of paneling and other remnants” in his son Daniel’s barn.2 In 1975, 38 years after that letter was sent, Daniel was clearing out the barn and found the letter. The possible missed opportunity for a major museum to affirm his father’s place in the annals of American Impressionism must have been highly emotional for Daniel, an artist himself. He wrote to Baur and, within days, received this response: “It is an extraordinary feeling to receive an answer to a letter of nearly forty years ago,” he wrote. “Since then I have been Curator and then Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.”3 Having retired the previous year, Baur continued to organize exhibitions for the Whitney and was “still very interested in the American Impressionist movement.”4 What evolved from many subsequent letters and meetings was the 1976 exhibition Theodore Wendel: An American Impressionist, 1859–1932. The same year, Baur authored an essay titled “Introducing Theodore Wendel” that appeared in the November/December issue of Art in America.

My involvement in the revival of Wendel’s reputation began with a phone call from Whitney (“Whit”) Wendel, the artist’s grandson. He had appreciated my work on Joseph DeCamp ( Joseph DeCamp: Master Painter of the Boston School) and Edmund Tarbell (Edmund C.Tarbell: Poet of Domesticity) and wanted a similar monograph done for his grandfather.

I was intrigued by Whit’s dedication to the project and also by the previous research and preservation work done by Whit’s father Daniel. Theodore Wendel was always in the back of my mind as a major player in any study of the Munich/Venice “boys” under their mentor Frank Duveneck and this, of course, has been noted in extensive publications about the Munich and Giverny groups who worked alongside Claude Monet.

11

Light and Color in Northeastern Massachusetts

I

n the forthcoming pages, Laurene Buckley casts a comprehensive light on Theodore Wendel, one of the more undervalued of American artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since the rediscovery of American Impressionism, beginning in the 1970s and achieving full recognition in the following decades, Wendel has never been completely overlooked. He has figured in several recurring scenarios. Beginning his life and career in the German community in later-nineteenth-century Cincinnati, he followed a fairly familiar course among his fellow art students there during the 1870s, to seek training in Munich, Germany.

While he entered the landscape class at the Royal Academy in 1878, Wendel preferred to follow Frank Duveneck, the mentor of so many of his Midwestern colleagues, in exploring what was then a radical aesthetic stance of direct brushwork, broad, unmodulated brushstrokes, and a disregard for a wide spectrum of palette in favor of dramatic contrasts of light and dark. This approach yielded estimable artistic results when Wendel joined Duveneck and a good many other Munich-trained Americans working in Venice.

By 1881, after returning to the United States for several years, Wendel was back in Europe, now in France, studying in Paris but also drawn, again, to a more advanced aesthetic, this time that of Impressionism. In fact, Wendel was among the first Americans to paint in Giverny, 40 miles downstream from Paris on the Seine River and home to the most celebrated of all the French Impressionists, Claude Monet. This was in 1886 and Wendel was painting landscapes and agrarian scenes in and around the village. The following year, he was one of the seven artists who were again in Giverny, establishing the most celebrated of all the art colonies on either side of the Atlantic, one that endured for about 30 years, and became the headquarters for the exploration of Impressionist aesthetics.

Giverny, ca. 1887–1888. Oil on canvas, 22 x 17 in.

(55.9 x 43.2 cm). Private collection.

The canard that these seven artists—six from the United States and one from Canada—were unaware of Monet’s presence in the village has been effectively dismissed, though their relationship with Monet has been variously argued. Several, such as Theodore Robinson and John Leslie Breck, would seem to have been brought into the Monet household perhaps more frequently than some of the others, such

15

18

chapter 1

The Early Years

T

he earliest public record for Theodore Wendel appears in the 1860 census for Madison County, Ohio. He was the fourth surviving child of Margaret (Margaretta in some records) M. Ruprecht and Carl Daniel Wendel (fig. 1.1), who at the time of the census were living in Midway, a small country village 30 miles southwest of Columbus. The children listed for that year were his eleven-year-old sister Frances, nine-year-old Peter, five-year-old William, three-year-old Theodore, and the youngest, an “Infant,” at one and a half [Daniel].1 This information suggests that the year of Theodore’s birth was 1857, rather than 1859, as noted in most biographies of the artist.2

fig. 1.1. Carl Daniel Wendel. Albumen print.

Photograph courtesy of theWendel Family Archives.

Landscape with Cow, ca. 1887. Oil on canvas, 16 x 13 in. (40.6 x 33 cm). Private collection.

Little is known about Theodore’s mother except that having married on January 28, 1847, in the much larger city of Columbus, she was 34 years of age by the time of the 1860 census, the mother of 5 surviving children in 13 years, and lived in the hinterlands of rural Ohio. The artist’s father was 2 years older than his wife and was listed in the census as a merchant and tailor with no property, but with $1,400 in his personal estate.3 His birthplace was recorded as Bavaria, Germany, and Margaret’s was noted as “D” (for Deutschland). They had known each other since childhood. Their families had traveled from Bavaria in 1806 for a three-month sea voyage to New York City, eventually settling in Columbus, Ohio.4 What brought them to Columbus is not known, but Theodore’s father, Carl Daniel Wendel, set up a tailor’s shop on Front Street and became a prominent figure in the thriving city, helping to establish the fire department and the First Lutheran Church.5 In Midway, the young couple ran a general store and also kept the tollgate.6 A map of the town from an 1862 atlas shows that most of the business activity, including the grocery stores, was centered around the intersection of Main and Federal streets. A “tollgate” implies that Midway was a stopover between other destination points. From the 1883 account of the town in A History of Madison County, Ohio, comes the confirmation: At quite an early day, a road was opened through from the East to the West, passing through this township from east to west, and which subsequently became a general thoroughfare, over which droves of cattle

19

34

chapter 4

Paris and Giverny

W

endel was next located in Paris in 1886, where he matriculated at the Académie Julian, by far the most appealing place of study abroad for American artists in the late nineteenth century.66 At the academy, students could study with some of the same prominent instructors who taught at the more prestigious École des Beaux Arts, learning the same and progressively more difficult skills as those taught at the École—drawing the figure from casts and, later, from life, with the eventual development of the figure or figures into large-scale genre scenes or mythological subjects. The latter, hopefully, would be the students’ submissions for the Paris salon in March of each year.

There is some indication that Wendel was frustrated with his work at the academy. In a letter home to his Newport student, Anna Hunter, he mentions a figural work in progress, which apparently proved too problematic in its depiction of perspective and drapery: “I did not finish the picture I spoke of, the principle [sic] stumbling block being a checkered contadina dress with maddening foreshortened folds in perspective,” he wrote. “I gave it up after a two weeks struggle, although parts of the picture were not bad.”67 Many students who studied in Paris at the time found a pivotal stylistic niche that determined the direction of their careers. As the future muralist Will H. Low reminisced, “We were a number of healthy-minded lads, dimly conscious, perhaps, that the course of art and literature in our time was to be directed by us in new and better channels; but this was only when we became, as we phrased it, ‘deadly serious’; and for the most part poetic aspiration and the dreams of youth were loudly scorned.”68 Wendel may have come to his own resolution at this time that the depiction of the figure was not going to be his specialty because the next pathway for him was one of primarily rendering landscapes, often at the little village of Giverny, an hour’s distance from Paris. The village had been the home of Claude Monet since 1883 and would be the 1887–1888 summer location for Wendel and a small band of Americans who took on the mantle of Monet’s avant-garde style of Impressionism.

Detail of Turkeys on the Wall, plate 7.

Along with John Leslie Breck, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, and Henry Fitch Taylor, Wendel rented “a large and well furnished house for a year.”69 His former

35

Map of Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1884. Image courtesy of CommunityHeritageMaps.com.

chapter 7

Ipswich Village and Ties to Boston and Gloucester

I

pswich was first and foremost a fishing village. By 1641, there were laws to allow every boat’s crew a house, garden, and “stages” for drying fish along the shores of the Little Neck peninsula off the mainland.136 Further expansion of the industry came in 1710, when Jeffrey’s Neck, farther north along the shore, was divided into lots for stages in the processing of fish for market.137 Some fishermen even engaged in both on- and offshore whaling while others were developing trade with foreign ports, including the Indies. Ipswich was soon on a par with the great seaports of Salem and Boston. But then came the embargoes of American goods during and after the Revolutionary War. That, coupled with the narrow and shallow Ipswich River and its competition from the deeper and wider harbors nearby, left the village at a disadvantage in terms of its status as a large seaport. The wharves were still thriving, however, in the early nineteenth century, with sloops and schooners transporting lumber, coal, domestic supplies, and other merchandise up the Ipswich River to inland destinations.

However, in 1838 when the Eastern Railroad was opened from Boston to Salem, the traditional method of transporting goods by water was now more expeditiously undertaken by rail. The once-busy wharves were in ruin by the early 1840s.

Other industries besides fishing continued or took precedence in the ensuing years, but essentially fostered the notion of a “self-contained” village. Farming was always a predominant and necessary livelihood, leading to many ancillary professions: there were coopers, wool pullers, tanners, shoemakers, and weavers of nets, cardigans, underwear, and, especially, hosiery, which later became Ipswich’s major status symbol nationally. The 1800s saw the building of the major churches in town; the expansion of its inns; the construction of homes and mansions, many of them summer residences; and the founding of significant institutions such as the Ipswich Academy (for women), the Choate Shipyard, Smith’s Mills, and Willowdale Mill. In spite of rapid growth in the 1880s, the town during Wendel’s time, and as it remains today, retained the look of an old New England village, complete with winding roads, stone fences, a town green, churches with picturesque steeples, and houses and other buildings from the First Period (1625–1725).138

63

82

chapter 9

Upper Farm, Ipswich

T

he upper farm was described by Ipswich historian Thomas Franklin Waters in 1917 as “the attractive residence of Theodore Wendel, the artist . . . [that] stands on the forty acre lot which the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, Pastor of the Church, acquired by grant or purchase.”187 Rogers was the pastor of the First Church of Ipswich and had acquired extensive lands in the region by the time of his death in 1775. Only one-and-a-quarter miles up the Argilla road from the lower farm and closer to Ipswich village, the upper farm had two distinct aspects. A vintage photograph (fig. 9.1) shows the formal front of the house, with its double-tiered entrance and its owner, Theodore Wendel, strutting out on the sidewalk. The rear view (fig. 9.2), however, has the feel of a country house, with the rugged terrain of an adjoining field and a large vegetable garden.

fig. 9.1. Upper farm house, front view, ca. 1913.

Albumen print. Photograph courtesy of the Wendel Family Archives.

fig. 9.2. Upper farm house, rear view, ca. 1913.

Albumen print. Photograph courtesy of the Wendel Family Archives.

Detail of Trees, Heartbreak Hill, Upper Farm, plate 49.

Pollarded Willows, Argilla Road (plate 47) is a view looking out at the edge of one of these fields. A herdsman and his cattle in the scene suggest that here, too, the Wendels kept livestock and hired help for the chores, although there is evidence that the children also were given tasks.188 Stone hedgerows, wooden fences, and trees would have been the dividing elements between pastureland and field. Having observed pollarded plane trees in Giverny, Wendel apparently cut back the willows on his property to create the gnarled and picturesque look shown in the painting.189 Haying (fig. 9.3) captures the sheer essence of farm life. The loose hay is being stacked into shocks by laborers with pitchforks, while sheaves of Indian corn are set up in the field with the butt ends down, looking like “pointed hats,” according to Adele “Kitty” Crockett Robertson, whose memoir, The Orchard, recounts her tale of saving a family apple farm on Argilla Road.190 She wrote: It was when the hay was in shocks that the farmers worried and watched the sky to the north for the approach of the black thunder clouds, heavy with wind and rain—or they looked to the east for a “sea turn,” the shift of the wind to the northeast and the accompanying rain and fog that might last for days, while the hay blackened with mildew and spoiled.191 No such foreboding sky threatens the landscape in Haying; rather, the brilliant sunlit meadow seems the epitome of optimism. Pitching Hay, Upper Farm (plate 46) exhibits

83

100

P LATES

101

plate 9.

Breaking Waves, ca. 1892.

Pastel on paper, 17½ x 23Ÿ in. (44.5 x 59.1 cm).

Private collection.

110

plate 10.

Looking Toward Gloucester, ca. 1892.

Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61 cm).

Private collection.

111

plate 11.

Picnic on the Rocks, ca. 1892.

Oil on board, 18 x 22 in. (45.7 x 55.9 cm).

Private collection.

112

plate 12.

Gloucester Harbor, 1894.

Pastel on paper, 15 x 26ž in. (38.1 x 67.9 cm).

Private collection.

113

plate 15.

Sketch,Water Carriers (Women Around a Fountain,Venice), ca. 1897.

Oil on canvas, 21 x 31 in. (53.3 x 78.7 cm).

Private collection.

116

plate 16.

Corner Traffic,Venice, ca. 1897–1898.

Oil on pastel, 19½ x 22 in. (49.5 x 55.9 cm).

Private collection.

117

plate 19.

Venice, Boats, Reflections in Water, Buildings, ca. 1897–1898.

Oil on canvas, 19 x 26¾ in. (48.3 x 67.9 cm).

Private collection.

120

plate 20.

Venice,Vegetable Merchants, ca. 1897–1898.

Oil on canvas, 22½ x 16K in. (57.1 x 41.6 cm).

Private collection.

plate 31.

Wendel Children at the Beach, ca. 1903.

Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm).

Private collection.

132

plate 32.

Early Autumn (Goldenrod and Asters), ca. 1905.

Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61 cm).

Private collection.

133

plate 41.

Butterflies (The Butterfly Catchers), ca. 1906.

Oil on canvas, 25 x 35 in. (63.5 x 88.9 cm).

The Julia B. Bigelow Fund and Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund, 2001.43.

142

Wendel_0062.tif

plate 42.

Fishermen Houses, Gloucester, ca. 1908.

Oil on canvas, 24½ x 29½ in. (62.2 x 74.9 cm).

Private collection.

143

Hydrangeas, ca. 1915. Oil on canvas, 38 x 31 in. (96.5 x 78.7 cm). Private collection.

Exhibition History This list contains all exhibitions in which Theodore Wendel is known to have shown work. Complete information on each exhibition—title, place, dates—is given where possible; imprecise or unascertainable data is indicated by parentheses.

1976

1921

Theodore Wendel: An American Impressionist, 1859–1932, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, October 16–December 5

Paintings by Theodore Wendel, Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA, January 10–22

1942

Twentieth Annual International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, April 28–June 30

Guild of Boston Artists, A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Miniatures,Watercolors, Prints, Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, October 27–November 29

Seventh General Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Miniatures, Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA, May 12–

1936

Exhibition of the Work of Boston Painters, St. Botolph Club, Boston, MA, December 12–24

Retrospective Exhibition of Artists Identified with Newport, Art Association of Newport, RI

1926

Summer Exhibition of Works, Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA, September

General Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Miniatures, Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA

Tenth Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, April 4–May 16

1920

1924–1925

Exhibition of Oil Paintings, Sculpture,Watercolors, Pastels and Miniatures by Boston Artists, Courtesy of the Copley Society, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA, March 11–April 5

Ninth Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, December16– January 20

1922 Twenty-first Annual International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, April 27–June 15

1921–1922 Eighth Exhibition, Oil Paintings by Contemporary American Artists, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, December 18–January 22

115th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, February 8–March 28

General Spring Exhibition, Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA, March 20–mid-June Nineteenth Annual International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, April 29–June 30

1919–1920 Seventh Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Contemporary American Artists, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, December 21–January 25

159

1884 Twenty-ninth Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings, Boston Art Club, Boston, MA, January 19– February 16 Seventh Annual Exhibition, Society of American Artists, National Academy of Design, New York, NY, May 26–June 21

1883 (Paintings by Young Cincinnati Artists), A.B. Closson Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, February 7 (approx.)–21 Sixth Annual Exhibition, Society of American Artists, American Art Gallery, New York, NY, March 26–April 28 Sixth Annual Exhibition, Society of American Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA, May 7–June 3

1881 Exhibition of American Etchings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA, April 11–May 9, Special Exhibition of Paintings by American Artists at Home and in Europe, Philadelphia Society of Artists, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 7–December 26 First Exhibition of the Society of Painter-Etchers, Royal Academy, London

1877 Ninth Annual Exhibition of the McMicken School of Design, College Hall, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, June 13–16

164

Selected Bibliography

Baur, John I. H. “Introducing Theodore Wendel.” Art in America 64 (November–December 1976).

Gammell, R. H. Ives. The Boston Painters: 1900–1930.

Orleans, MA: Parnassus Imprints, 1986.

———. Theodore Wendel, An American Impressionist, 1859–1932. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1976.

Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984.

Bourguignon, Katherine M. “Giverny: A Village for Artists.” In Impressionist Giverny: A Colony of Artists, 1885–1915, edited by Katherine M. Bourguignon.

Exhibition catalogue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press and Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007.

Buckley, Laurene, Joseph DeCamp: Master Painter of the Boston School. Munich and New York: Prestel, 1995.

——— “Theodore Wendel: Ipswich Impressionist.”

Antiques & Fine Art 13 (Winter/Spring 2014).

DeVeer, Elizabeth, and Richard J. Boyle. Sunlight and Shadow:The Life and Art of Willard L. Metcalf. New York: Abbeville Press and Boston University, 1987.

Duffee, May Margaretta. As I Remember Washington Court House and My Autobiography. Wilmington, Ohio: Wilmington Publishing Company, 1953.

Duveneck, Josephine W. Frank Duveneck: Painter-Teacher.

San Francisco: John Howell Books, 1970.

Fairbrother, Trevor J., Theodore E. Stebbins, William L. Vance, and Erica E. Hirshler. The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870–1930. Exhibition catalogue. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1986.

Force, Debra J., and David Selliln. American Painters on the French Scene, 1874–1914. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Beacon Hill Fine Art, 1996.

———. “Impressions: American Painters on the French Scene, 1874–1930.” In Impressions: Americans in France, 1860–1930 and Claude Monet: Giverny and the North of France. Exhibition catalogue. Naples, FL: Naples Museum of Art, 2007.

———. “John Twachtman and the Artistic Colony in Gloucester at the Turn of the Century.” In Twachtman in Gloucester: His Last Years, 1900–1902 by John Douglass Hale, Richard J. Boyle, and William H. Gerdts.

Exhibition catalogue. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1987.

———. Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915. Exhibition catalogue. Chicago: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992.

———. Monet’s Giverny: An Impressionist Colony. New York, London, and Paris: Abbeville Press, 1993.

Hiesinger, Ulrich W. Impressionism in America:The Ten American Painters. New York and Munich: Jordan-Volpe Gallery/Prestel, 1991.

Hunter, Anna Falconnet. Diaries (diaries 1855–1941, box 98). Newport, RI: Newport History Society.

Jacobs, Michael. The Good and Simple Life: Artist Colonies in Europe and America. Oxford, UK: Phaidon Press, 1985.

Joyes, Claire. Monet at Giverny. New York: Mayflower, 1975.

165

First Edition © 2018 The Artist Book Foundation All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Convention. Except for legitimate excerpts customary in review or scholarly publications, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by The Artist Book Foundation 1327 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247 Distributed in the United States, its territories and possessions, and Canada by ACC Distribution www.accdistribution.com/us Distributed outside North America by ACC Distribution www.accdistribution.com/uk Publisher and Executive Director: L. Pell van Breen Art Director: David Skolkin Design: Irene Cole Editor: Deborah Thompson Proofreader: Nicole Barone Indexer: Barbara Smith Manufactured in Canada ISBN 978-0-9962007-6-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Buckley, Laurene, author. | Gerdts, William H., writer of introduction.

Title: Theodore Wendel : true notes of American impressionism / by Laurene Buckley ; introduction by William H. Gerdts.

Description: New York : The Artist Book Foundation, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018023616 | ISBN 9780996200769 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Wendel, Theodore, 1859-1932--Criticism and interpretation. | Impressionism (Art)—United States.

Classification: LCC ND237.W433 B83 2018 | DDC 759.05/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018023616

Front cover: Detail of Butterflies (The Butterflly Catchers), plate 41. p. ii–iii: Detail of Fisherman’s Houses, Gloucester, plate 42. p. iv: Detail of Boys Swimming at Ring-Back-Rock, Ipswich, plate 33. p. vi: Theodore Wendel, ca. 1900. Albumen print. Photograph courtesy of the Wendel Family Archives. p. viii–ix: Detail of Pitching Hay, Upper Farm, plate 46.

Back cover: Gloucester Harbor (Gloucester Yacht Club), plate 43.

172