“The job of the
artist is always to deepen the mystery.”
- Francis Bacon
The
curse of the art historian is to be forever asking questions. Where?
When? How? But every so often (and generally at the most
frustrating moment), we find ourselves faced with an informational
hollow, a query to which there are no search results. Such it is with
the enigmatic painter whom the world has come to know as Marion Kavanagh Wachtel.
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| Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel |
Records on the artist’s
exhibition history, educational background, family, and ouvre are
fairly extensive; information on her personal life, however, is not.
We know that in 1904, Ms. Kavanaugh added the surname Wachtel
– an understandable consequence of her marriage to fellow artist,
Elmer Wachtel. Following her wedding, however, Marion chose another,
somewhat more enigmatic name-change: she abandoned the fourth vowel
in Kavanaugh, and it became the middle-name, Kavanagh.
Scholarship on exactly what precipitated this latter change is
sparse, though the move was not without precedent. Six years
earlier, soon-to-be-renowned artist Granville Redmond changed
his name from Grenville in a similarly befuddling move.
Whether these subtle rebrandings affected the artists’ respective
rises to prominence is unknown.
The events surrounding
the meeting of Marion and Elmer are the matter of some debate, as
well. The prevailing theory states that the two were introduced
through renowned Dusseldorf-cum-Barbizon School painter, William
Keith. By the turn of the century, Keith had long since established
himself as a leading California landscape artist – so well known,
in fact, that he was referred to as the “Dean of California
painters.” It makes sense, then, that he was well acquainted with
East Coast transplant and emerging Southern California landscapist,
Elmer Wachtel.
Marion, for her part, had
spent the last decade immersed in her painting. She studied under
William Merritt Chase at the Art Institute of Chicago, taught courses
for her alma mater, and traveled the Santa Fe Railway on a commission
to illustrate the quintessential American Southwest. By the turn of
the century she was widely regarded as one of the nation’s premier
watercolorists – renowned for her bold tonalism and technical
precision.
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| "Indian Summer" - SOLD |
In late 1903, as the
story goes, Marion was in San Francisco to exhibit landscapes
depicting an area surrounding the estate of wealthy patron and
entrepreneur, Elwood Cooper. Her pieces were well received,
positively reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, and
garnered the artist a measure of positive attention in the Bay Area.
It is here that the artist came to the attention of the
aforementioned Keith – and here that the general consensus among
historians diverges.
One story says that
Marion was studying directly under Keith for some period of time in
San Francisco. Lacking definite bibliographic evidence, some will
venture no further than to say that the two knew each other in
passing. Those that assert the more intimate relationship go on to
say that it is Keith who referred Marion to Elmer, the latter
residing in LA at the time. Still others posit that it was of her own
volition that Marion traveled to Southern California where she
encountered the charming Elmer.
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| "Santa Paula" - SOLD |
Whichever story is true,
it so happened that in 1904 Marion wed Elmer, and the two began their
artistic lives together in Southern California. The couple settled in
the Arroyo Seco near Pasadena. For the next 25 years, they would
travel the region, painting the landscape as they saw it – Marion
in watercolor, Elmer in oil. Marion became famous for her immaculate,
deliberate washes; her vivid descriptions of the California
landscape. Together with Elmer, their work was highly sought after
and exhibited around the country, from San Francisco to Chicago to
New York.
Though Marion received
critical acclaim in her own right, watercolor as a medium was at the
time still viewed as subordinate to oil (it isn’t until the 1920s
that watercolor gained wide acceptances as high art). It is an
interesting question, then, why an artist such as Marion – so
renowned for her technical prowess – never sought the accolades
afforded the medium of oil.
Although the official
record on the matter is scant, historians are nothing if not happy to
speculate.
It has been proposed that
Marion refused to paint in oil out of deference to her husband,
Elmer. Perhaps presaging the tumultuous relationship of Jackson
Pollack and Lee Krasner in the mid-20th century, she was
happy to avoid comparison and inevitable competition with her artist
husband. This analysis gains credence through the events following
Elmer’s death in 1929. For several years afterward, Marion was
unable to bring herself to paint at all. When she finally picked up a
brush in the early 1930s, she burst onto the scene with something the
art community never expected: paintings in oil.
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| "Sierra Scene" - SOLD |
In addition to a change
in media, her palette brightened considerably. Whether this change
was an homage to her late husband, or a personal expression that
could only find voice after his death, remains a mystery.
Marion continued to paint
and exhibit, both in watercolor and in oil, until her death in 1954.
To this day, the truth behind her personal story remains largely
obscured. Who was this enigmatic artist, really?
The work of Marion Kavanagh Wachtel is held in the collections of the Los Angeles County
Museum, the Irvine Museum, the Orange County Museum, the Santa Fe
Railway Co., and the LA County Museum of Natural History.
For
more information on Marion Kavanagh Wachtel, including available
canvases, please visit us online at www.kargesfineart.com, or email us at wganz@kargesfineart.com
