Name/Title
Krehbiel winter painting letter 1938Entry/Object ID
2023.50.41Scope and Content
Transcript of a letter, written on Maplewood Hotel stationary, from artist Albert H. Krehbiel to his son Evans in 1938.
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Dear Evans,
Happy New Year!
How be ye? Came over the last night of school on the midnight bus and started work as soon as I landed. Have gotten my second wind now and can work all day in zero weather and not mind it. The first three days of anything new, almost kills one. To go through with it, the rest seems easy. Yesterday, worked all day in a blizzard and did three canvasses. When I went to breakfast before dawn I thought the trees were going to fall so strong was the wind. A breakfast of wheat cakes and three slivers of bacon washed down with two cups of coffee would make any dawn seem rosy. The first sketch was the toughest, right out in the open. The two larger canvasses were easier as I was on the lee side of houses. Drove shingle nails into the weatherboarding and hooked the stretcher over it, as an easel wouldn't stand up. Must have dropped to way below zero last night as the river froze over solid. Plenty nippy this morning and it took a lot of hunting to find a motif that didn't resemble cast iron. But the sun put light into the clouds and I made a quick sketch of a boat and hustled back for a 28 x 24. Then it began snowing, but I liked the first aspect better and painted it that way. Then two small sketches after that before the day was done.
At six I usually change clothes and go to the tavern to rest weary legs for an hour before dinner. All the champion checker players lay for me here as I seldom loose a game. Yesterday they thought sure that I would come early and they couldn't think of one painting on such a day. I told then I had fallen asleep but some of the oldtimers who had seen me out-doors gave me the wink and kept mum. I have the advantage over all the players. A clear head and an empty stomach are hard to beat at anything. and the other day I worked for six hours on a larger canvas in the deep woods. All conifers. It looked like Christmas and smelled like Christmas. Only the candlelights and intonation were missing to make it a cathedral. And the solitude was so dense that even the noise of the surf was excluded here. A painter notices everything that happens within the boundaries of his motif. His eye strikes all the elements many times in a second as he seeks the retention. But that day not a bird, a rabbit or a grouse was permitted to spit before the vision. It was a place worthy of the Druids and I was glad when I picked up my traps and hurried away to the river. The river is the gay spot in life now, thousands of gulls and ducks play the air or rest upon the waters. And they seem so contented. No wonder nature in this period of slim picking has sent black clouds of minnows up from the lake. She has also arranged that the top layer is just at the water's surface, while the lower level may be four feet down where large fish feed and keep the mass boiling. Mrs. Duck and Mrs. Gull paddle up and in a stab or two fill their gullets. They retire to make room for others knowing that the table is always set. But nature must guard her own. Last night she sent the tablecloth to the laundry and today the minnows under the ice are having a holiday until it thaws again.
At the hole in the wall where I breakfast the fishermen stop for coffee before going out to the lake. A radio at the door is constantly going. Each new arrival turns the button as he closes the door. These bearded men in heavy clothing and hip boots take their lives in hand when they face Lake Michigan at this time of year. What comes over the air via radio is so much piffle to them. One sees groups standing outside waiting to see what the wind will be at dawn for even fish are affected by the wind.
Worked all Christmas day. Turned down three invitations to dinner for fear that the light snow would disappear, I have found that a bit of chocolate and a hand full of peanuts are hard to beat for an outdoor dinner. The night before there was singing under the lighted tree in the park and music by the school band. All my friends came up to meet me, thinking I had just arrived, and we visited between songs.
So the next morning I had a large canvass finished when the church bells began to call. And as the painter mixes his colors and their gradations to see them side by side on the canvass, so nature too is a master-mixer in her art. All the subtleties between drowsiness and deepest slumber are recorded. With tone so deep that even a dream cannot penetrate. What more could one wish for after a day out-of-doors. And with the awakening dream that seems to hit all shores in an instant, she paints in monochrome tints of rose; that makes one jump out of bed to see what the new dawn will herein store. Eighty-thirty, one eye already shut, the other fast closing.
And to think I will have to leave all this & go back to another kind of work on New Years day.
Dec. 28 '38
Horridly Dein [Yours, in German]
AlContext
Written when Albert Krehbiel was 65, this letter gives insights into the artist's artistic methods, his observations of nature and town life. On this trip he likley lodged at the Maplewood Hotel.
The SDHC's collection includes a Krehbiel painting of the Carl Bird boat shop that is a example of Krehbiel's Saugatuck snow and winter scenes.
Krehbiel first visited Saugatuck in 1900. He taught at Ox-Bow from 1926 to 1931 then later opened his own art school, the the AK Studio, in a waterfront building just north of the Tourist Home hotel (now the site of Ship 'n Shore).Collection
SDHS NL Inserts, Artists, 1845 Fishing, commercial, Nature, ecology, the landscapeCataloged By
Winthers, SallyAcquisition
Accession
2023.50Acquisition Method
Found in CollectionNotes
SDHS Newsletter insert pagesLocation
* Untyped Location
Digital data in CatalogItRelationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Krehbiel, Albert Henry 1873-1945General Notes
Note
This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. A binder of original paper copies is catalog item 2023.50.01Create Date
November 10, 2023Update Date
November 24, 2023
