Note
Elmer Wachtel
(b.1864, Baltimore, MD – d.1929, Mexico)
WINTER IN TOPANGA
Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
Jonathan Club collection
Elmer and his wife, artist Marion K. Wachtel, lived in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, traveling around California and the Southwest to sketch the landscape. They painted and exhibited together until his sudden death in 1929 in Guadalajara, Mexico, while on a sketching trip. Wachtel's early works were landscapes done in moody, dark tones common among San Francisco painters; whereas his later palette lightened, and his works became more decorative. He is today considered on one of Southern California's most important painters.