1903 Walpi Hopi Village, Arizona First Mesa Landscape by Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel

Description

Walpi Hopi Village, Arizona First Mesa Landscape by Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel. Significant southwestern painting of Hopi at Walpi Mesa in … more Walpi Hopi Village, Arizona First Mesa Landscape by Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel. Significant southwestern painting of Hopi at Walpi Mesa in Arizona attributed to Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel (American,1876-1954), c. 1903. This painting is one of four paintings of the Hopi at Walpi painted by Wachtel in 1900-1905. See last image for variant of painting with same horse, rider and figure on stairs. Unsigned. Condition: Very good; minor craquelure upper left corner. Image size: 24"H x 28.50"W. Presented in giltwood frame size: 30"H x 34"W x 2"D.

Provenance: In personal collection of this art dealer for 27 years; purchased from art dealer Johannes Schot in 1990, whom acquired it in a Southern California Pasadena estate in 1990. We have included two images (only) of examples of the Hopi Village, one is a photograph and and the other is another painting by the artist of the same scene.

Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel (1876-1954) Landscape painter. Born in Milwaukee, WI on June 10, 1876 into an artistic family. Marion’s mother was an artist and her great grand-father a Royal Academician in London. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Vanderpoel and in New York City with William M. Chase.

For several years she taught at the AIC and established a reputation in Milwaukee as a competent portrait painter. A commission from the Sante Fe Railroad Company to paint scenes in their ticket offices brought her to California. Arriving in San Francisco in 1903, she became a pupil of William Keith. Learning of her proposed move to Southern California, Keith suggested that she contact Elmer Wachtel. A romance blossomed and they married in 1904.

After Elmer’s death in 1929, she was inactive for a few years but continued to live in their Arroyo Seco home; by the early 1930s she was painting and exhibiting again. Mrs. Wachtel worked exclusively with watercolors until after her husband’s death and then used both watercolor and oil. Regular exhibitions with both the New York and California Watercolor Societies made her paintings popular on both coasts. Her early works are tighter and more meticulously detailed than those produced after 1920. After her marriage, the artist dropped the "u" in her surname and spelled it "Kavanagh". She died at her home in Pasadena on May 22, 1954.


Member: California Watercolor Society; Academy of Western Painters, LA; Pasadena Society of Painters; Friday Morning Club, LA; New York Watercolor Club; Ten Painters of LA.

Exhibited: LACMA 1915, 1917; Stanford University, 1936. Works held: Laguna Museum; California State Building, LA; Woman’s Club, Hollywood; Cedar Rapids Museum; Freemont High School, LA; Gardena (CA) High School; Friday Morning Club, LA. less