William Wendt 1865 - 1946

Sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 24, 2001, lot 164A
Acquired at the above sale

Chicago, Illinois, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Artists Eighteenth Annual Exhibition, February-March 1914, no. 321

This work is in very good condition. The canvas is lined. Under UV: there is no apparent inpainting.
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William Wendt’s landscapes reveal as much about the grandeur of the Western topography as the artist’s own spiritual beliefs. Wendt prescribed to 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. Tahoma, The Eternal, with its vigorous and lively brushwork, emphasizes the contrast between the immortality of its subject matter and the mortality of its creator. The juxtaposition of these two truths, both of which Wendt deeply understood, 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” (Arthur Millier, “Of Art and Artists,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1926, n.p.).

Wendt painted Tahoma, The Eternal in 1913 following a summer excursion into Washington and other areas of the Pacific Northwest.  Tahoma, The Eternal exemplifies his ability to capture the magnificence and the expanse of the great western landscape.  As the composition gradually leads the eye upward from the scattered trees in the foreground to the rugged mountainside and crisp blue sky, Wendt directs the viewer’s gaze to ascend to the heavens, the very source of his inspiration. Wendt predominantly painted en plein air in an attempt to directly absorb and subsequently portray the ethereal qualities of nature. He seldom depicted figures in his landscapes, and only rarely did he even allude to humanity with the depiction of a house or a bridge in the distance, instead focusing on capturing the dignity and spirituality he saw as inherent to the landscape.