Note
Marion Kavanagh Wachtel
(b. 1876, Milwaukee, WI - d. 1954, Pasadena, CA)
APRIL MORNING
SANTA MONICA CANYON AT PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY
c. 1920, watercolor on paper, 20 x 26 inches
Jonathan Art Foundation collection
Purchased with funds assisted by the Jane Lauman Trust
Before her move to California in 1903 to study under William Keith, Marion Kavanaugh had already built a solid art career as instructor at Chicago Art Institute. Upon Keith’s recommendation, she met Los Angeles painter Elmer Wachtel, and the two were soon married. Throughout their marriage the Wachtels took regular sketching trips across the region, he painting in oil, and she in watercolor. In the years after her husband’s death in 1929, Wachtel turned to oil as her primary landscape medium.