Autumn on Main Street, Ipswich
Signed lower right / Theodore Wendel
Description
As it had in Newport, Theodore Wendel’s teaching post in Gloucester supplemented his earnings from painting sales, a critical need for an artist just launching his career, and he later became an instructor at Boston’s Cowles Art School from 1892 until 1897, where he met his future wife Philena Stone. The extra income, combined with his steady roster of exhibitions, soon allowed Wendel to feel more financially secure in his profession and in 1897 he and Philena were married, with artist and lifelong friend Decamp serving as best man. Following a year-long honeymoon spent exploring France and Italy, the Wendels relocated to Philena’s ancestral homestead in Ipswich, where the village and the family’s Lower and Upper Farms on Argilla Road would serve as the artist’s personal version of Giverny for the latter part of his career. As he had in Giverny, Wendel found plenty of inspiring subject matter only a short distance from his home on County Street, as seen in Autumn on Main Street, Ipswich, captured just a few blocks away. The painting demonstrates the artist’s confident use of color in rendering the brilliant gold and orange leaves of the changing trees.
Provenance
- By descent through the family of the artist
Inscriptions
Labels
Exhibitions
- Bringing to Light: Theodore Wendel, Vose Galleries, Boston, October 19 – December 7, 2019
Literature
- Buckley, Laurene. Theodore Wendel: True Notes of American Impressionism (North Adams, MA: The Artist Book Foundation, 2018), p. 65
Condition
Good. The painting is not lined and there are some areas of thinness in the road, distant buildings and sky. There is scattered minor retouch in the foreground, in the right tree trunk, in the center tree trunk and above the far left figure.
Frame Details
Description
As it had in Newport, Theodore Wendel’s teaching post in Gloucester supplemented his earnings from painting sales, a critical need for an artist just launching his career, and he later became an instructor at Boston’s Cowles Art School from 1892 until 1897, where he met his future wife Philena Stone. The extra income, combined with his steady roster of exhibitions, soon allowed Wendel to feel more financially secure in his profession and in 1897 he and Philena were married, with artist and lifelong friend Decamp serving as best man. Following a year-long honeymoon spent exploring France and Italy, the Wendels relocated to Philena’s ancestral homestead in Ipswich, where the village and the family’s Lower and Upper Farms on Argilla Road would serve as the artist’s personal version of Giverny for the latter part of his career. As he had in Giverny, Wendel found plenty of inspiring subject matter only a short distance from his home on County Street, as seen in Autumn on Main Street, Ipswich, captured just a few blocks away. The painting demonstrates the artist’s confident use of color in rendering the brilliant gold and orange leaves of the changing trees.
Provenance
- By descent through the family of the artist
Inscriptions
Labels
Exhibitions
- Bringing to Light: Theodore Wendel, Vose Galleries, Boston, October 19 – December 7, 2019
Literature
- Buckley, Laurene. Theodore Wendel: True Notes of American Impressionism (North Adams, MA: The Artist Book Foundation, 2018), p. 65
Condition
Good. The painting is not lined and there are some areas of thinness in the road, distant buildings and sky. There is scattered minor retouch in the foreground, in the right tree trunk, in the center tree trunk and above the far left figure.
