William Wendt

1865-1946

American Artist

Wendt was born in Germany. He emigrated to Chicago in 1880 and studied briefly at the Art Institute. Basically self-taught, he learned to become a great technician by means of his keenly honed skills in the observation of nature. He moved to Los Angeles where he helped co-found the California Art Club in 1909. He was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in New York in 1912 and that year moved to Laguna Beach where he was very instrumental in establishing the art colony there. His style changed over the years, initially painting in the more acceptable American Impressionist manner, gradually becoming more involved in a blocky, masculinely- rendered and totally unique form of expression, based on an angular interpretation of nature. He died in Laguna Beach in 1946.