William Wendt

(1865-1946)

In the Shadow of the Grove (Sunlight and Shadow) 40 x 55 1/4in framed 55 1/4 x 70 1/2in

Footnotes

Provenance
The Union League Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, purchased by the club's Art Committee, 1907.

Exhibited
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Oil Paintings and Sculpture by American Artists, October 22 - December 1, 1907.

Literature
Union League Club of Chicago Catalogue of Paintings, 1907, p. 15, no. 8.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Oil Paintings and Sculpture by American Artists, [exhibition catalog], 1907, p. 54, no. 430.
J. A. Walker, Documents of the Life and Art of William Wendt, 1865-1946, California's Painter Laureate of the Paysage Moralise, Big Pine, California, 1992, p. 157, no. 317.

William Wendt visited the West coast as early as 1894, but traveled extensively throughout both coasts and Europe, with Chicago as his home base until he established residency in Los Angeles in 1906. ¹ While he and his artist wife Julia Bracken Wendt continued to participate in exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago over the next few years, they became firmly established in the Los Angeles plein air scene. They were original members of the California Art Club in 1910. Wendt was a loyal supporter of the CAC, exhibiting almost every year between 1910-1938 and serving as president for the years of 1911-1914, 1917, and 1918. ²

In 1906 Wendt visited Santa Barbara and painted a series of works, six of which were later sent off to show in Chicago. This was a common practice for the artist, as his works were well received in the Chicago area at this time. It may well be that In the Shadow of the Grove was painted in the Santa Barbara area. Although dated a year later, it was common for Wendt to date his paintings to suit the need for new exhibition works as opposed to accurate dating. Nevertheless, this painting did travel to Chicago in 1907 where it was subsequently exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago and then purchased that same year by the Union League Club of Chicago where it has hung ever since.

William Wendt's landscapes reveal as much about the grandeur of the West as the artist's own religious beliefs. Wendt believed in the theory of intelligent design and believed that God's creative purpose for the Earth is as evident in the natural world as in scripture. In the Shadow of the Grove, with its bright and lively brushwork, emphasizes the contrast between the immortality of the landscape and the mortality of its creator. The juxtaposition of these two truths, both of which Wendt deeply believed, appear frequently throughout his landscape compositions: "A man who can compose so surely and strongly has to know where he stands in relation to life, he must see the world as a moral creation, a thing of inevitable laws and definite structures." ³

The complexity of composition exemplified throughout In the Shadow of the Grove, reveals Wendt's masterful talents as a true Impressionist. He has layered color upon color throughout the landscape, giving the scene a dazzling effect of brightness and immediacy. The trees in the foreground emphasize the painting's perspective, as the viewer's eye is drawn deep into the scene. The result is a masterwork for the artist and a bold symbol of American Impressionism.

Reviewing an exhibition of the artist's work a few years later, Antony Anderson described Wendt's 'notable pictures' as "large, serious, deliberate, carefully thought out from start to finish. The result is quiet massiveness, the brooding bigness of nature in skies, hills, and mountains. And his technique has the sureness which comes from thought and knowledge...he may be called a painter's painter." ⁴

In 1927, the title of the painting was changed by an unknown source in the club to Sunlight and Shadow as referenced by William R. Mundie, Chairman of the Art Committee, in the same year. In the club's Bulletin, September 1927, Mundie also wrote an article titled 'Landscape by Chicago Man in Art Collection William Wendt's Paintings Charm Observer with Intricacy of Design'.

¹ J. Blake, W. South, and J. Stern, In Nature's Temple: The Life and Art of William Wendt, Irvine, The Irvine Museum, 2008, pp. 233, 239.
² Ibid., pp. 242-243.
³ Ibid., pp. 246-247.
⁴ A. Anderson, "Art and Artists", Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1914, p. III4.