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About Theodore Wendel
Theodore Wendel (1858-1932) was born and raised in Ohio. He and Joseph R. DeCamp, who became friends while students in Cincinnati, continued their studies together in Munich. Finally Wendel went to France and studied at the Julian Academy. He and several others, including the midwesterners Theodore Earl Butler and Theodore Robinson, make up the "Giverny pioneers" who discovered the magic of impressionism adjacent to Claude Monet’s private gardens. Around the turn of the century, Wendel returned to America settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts. Some scholars believe Wendel’s finest works were executed here.
This landscape has a rich, autumnal glow, recalling the palettes of tonalist painters. This suggests that Wendel experimented with styles other than impressionism, during the late years, when he had settled in Ipswich. We know that he produced works with a heavier impasto and more emphatic brushwork at this time. A roughly contemporary work is a winter scene, Sledding, Ipswich (Private collection), which has a similar interest in the everyday activities of children at play. In both paintings there is a definite "Spirit of Place" conveyed. According to John I. H. Baur (1976), the works from the Ipswich period are "some of the finest of Wendel’s whole career." |
Paintings by Theodore Wendel
| Children Picking Flowers |
| oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches |
| signed: lower right |
| date: circa 1906 |
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Click Picture to Enlarge |
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