The Denver Art Museum has acquired a work by California impressionist William Wendt, the German-born, self-taught artist who was one of the most respected landscape painters working on the West Coast in the 20th century. 
William Wendt (1865-1946), The Soil, 1926, oil on canvas, 30 x 36”
The work, an oil from 1926 titled The Soil, features a gorgeous vista of a low-lying valley with farmlands and clusters of trees. Rising up out of the background is an imposing mountain that stretches into the clouds. The work is a quintessential Wendt painting. “The Soil is a wonderful representation of his oeuvre, with its bright swaths of color depicting a fertile valley in the San Luis Obispo County of California,” according to the museum. “The painting was acquired through the generous support of Robert and Wendy Kaufman with funds from the Harry I. and Edythe Smookler Endowment.”
Having left Germany in 1880, Wendt settled in Chicago, where he worked as a commercial artist in the late-1800s. After two trips west, in 1894 and 1906, the artist was smitten by the greenery and hills of Southern California. After marrying sculptor Julia Bracken, Wendt and his new bride moved to Los Angeles and later settled in Laguna Beach, where they would occasionally show their work together.
Wendt was known as a plein air painter, and the way he observed the natural landscape and rendered it in paint on his canvas developed his reputation as one of the top artists working in Southern California. He also was a founding member of the California Art Club. And yet, even as he was associated with California’s unique landscapes, Wendt would also travel throughout his life, including to Europe, where he would further develop his style.—
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