



William Wendt(1865-1946)Along the River Bed 30 x 40in framed 39 1/2 x 49 1/2in
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William Wendt (1865-1946)
signed and dated 'WILLIAM WENDT. 1923' (lower left)
oil on canvas
30 x 40in
framed 39 1/2 x 49 1/2in
Painted in 1923.
Footnotes
Provenance
Stendahl Art Galleries, Los Angeles, California.
The Redfern Gallery, Laguna Beach, California.
Private collection, Southern California.
Exhibited
Laguna Beach, Laguna Art Association, 1923.
Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, William Wendt And His Work, 1926, no. 56.
Los Angeles, Stendahl Galleries, Farewell Exhibition, March 21 - April 9, 1927, no. 77.
Irvine, The Irvine Museum, In Nature's Temple, The Life and Art of William Wendt, November 9, 2008 - February 8, 2009.
Irvine, The Irvine Museum, Selections from the Irvine Museum [traveling exhibition], October 6, 2009 - February 13, 2010.
Irvine, The Irvine Museum, California Impressionism: Selections from the Irvine Museum, [traveling exhibition], September 28, 2013 - January 9, 2014.
Irvine, California: The Golden Land of Promise, January 24 - May 21, 2015.
Literature
A. Anderson, F.S. Hogue, A.M. Cook, A. Millier, William Wendt And His Work, Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, 1926, p. 76, illustrated.
The Clubwoman, Pasadena, February 1928, illustrated.
C.W. Glenn and S. Taylor-Winter, eds., In Praise of Nature: The Landscapes of William Wendt [exh. cat.], Long Beach, California State University, University Art Museum, 1989, p. 15.
J.A. Walker, Documents on the Life and Art of William Wendt (1865-1946), California's Painter Laureate of the Paysage Moralise, Big Pine, California, 1992, p. 128, no. 10.
J. Stern, California: This Golden Land of Promise, Irvine, 2001, p. 182, illustrated on dust jacket, p. 6, illustrated.
J. Irvine Smith, A California Woman's Story, Irvine, 2006, title pages, illustrated (detail), p. 126, illustrated.
W. South, In Nature's Temple: The Life and Art of William Wendt, Irvine, 2008, p. 1 (detail), p. 58, illustrated, p. 303, checklist.
J. Stern, H.L. Jones, and J. Blake, Selections from the Irvine Museum, Irvine, 2009, p. 242, illustrated.
William Wendt, considered a giant among American Impressionists, is often referred to as 'The Dean of Southern California'. His adoption of an impressionistic style can be dated to 1896-97 when he and his close friend George Gardner Symons were painting together in the Los Angeles area. Both men were in the avant-garde of American painters at the time in that they were open to the Impressionist style that had begun in France in the mid-19th century. Southern California was a perfect location for translating the bright colors, atmospheric conditions, and shimmering light that were characteristic of the French Impressionist style to a quintessentially American location.
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. The tranquility, strength and sense of well-being of his work appealed to a wide audience. It had a sober sort of poetry about it, one critic wrote, 'like a fine, familiar hymn'. Wendt painted exactly what he saw in nature with warm colors and outstanding effects of light and shadow.
In the 1926 Stendahl Galleries exhibition catalogue, the authors wrote of the painting, "Again we tread the bosky pleasaunces at Capistrano. It is early winter, the season of greenest fruitfulness. Oaks are massed superbly to the left. In the middle distance, to the right, oaks and sycamores in sedate array glimmer and beckon. A sunlit prospect painted with the easy mastery that comes from knowledge." 1
Along the River Bed captures Wendt's love of 'the reveal', as the viewer's eye is drawn around a bend and into a sunlit clearing. The orange in the turning trees contrasts with the various tones of greens and shadows. Clouds dance above and give the composition a lively sense of immediacy and freshness. The artist's brushstrokes are quick, broad and wispy Wendt's effectiveness in capturing the California landscape is on full display.
It bears noting the importance of Stendahl Galleries to the art scene in Los Angeles for over fifty years. Earl Stendahl began selling the works of local painters and opened his first gallery at the inauguration of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1921. Stendahl Galleries emerged as one of the most innovative and influential art galleries in Southern California. By the 1930s, the gallery had established its reputation as the premier dealer in painters of the California Impressionist School. William Wendt, Guy Rose, Edgar Payne, Joseph Kleitsch and Nicolai Fechin were part of the early Stendahl stable of artists. Representation by Stendahl Galleries gave artists International fame and increased fortune. In the gallery's later years they sold works by modern artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall and Paul Klee. Earl Stendahl was known to advise several major art collectors of the day including Nelson Rockefeller, William Randolph Hearst, Thomas Gilcrease and curators from many museums including the Louvre.
1 A. Anderson, F.S. Hogue, A.M. Cook, A. Millier, William Wendt And His Work, Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, 1926, p. 76.