|
Item # FA-083
Max Weyl
(German American,1837 - 1914)
Oil on canvas "Virginia Landscape, 24" x 32" + original 8" wide Gilt
frame, Signed and dated LL "Max Weyl 98".
Wikipedia
Biography: He was born on December 1, 1837, in
Muhlen-am-Neckar, a small town in the Baden-Wurtemberg region of
southern Germany. His parents names were Veit Hirsch Weyl and Emma
Miriam Goetz. In 1853 his family emigrated to Williamsport,
Pennsylvania, where Weyl worked in watch and clock repair, a trade he
had learned through an early apprenticeship. In 1857, he moved to
Washington, D.C. and became a jeweler with a retail store on 7th Street
NW in a building that still stands and currently is used as a Ruby
Tuesday restaurant across from the Verizon Center. Weyl married Miriam
Raff and had several children including Mathilda, Henry and Adolph.
Weyl began to paint as a hobby and displayed some of his works in his
shop window. Weyl also was active in the then-small Washington Jewish
community.
In the 1870s, local businessman, Samuel H. Kauffman, publisher of the
Evening Star newspaper, took noontime walks on 7th Street and observed
Weyl's paintings on display in the shop window. Kauffman purchased some
of Weyl's works and became his patron, financing a trip for Weyl to
study art professionally in Europe.
In 1878, under Kauffman's patronage, Weyl undertook a year of study
abroad, visiting studios and galleries in Munich, Paris, Vienna and
Venice. After his return to Washington, he and a group of fellow
artists formed the "Washington Landscape School", resulting in
paintings "plein air" paintings of Washington pastoral scene.
Weyl came to be called the "American Daubigny" and his works became
very popular among Washington art collectors. His work became part of
collections including the White House where purchases were made by Mrs.
Grover Cleveland and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, Georgetown University, the
Virginia Military Institute, Kiplinger Washington Editors, the Cosmos
Club and many others.
On Weyl's 70th birthday in 1907, the Corcoran Gallery of Art held a
retrospective exhibit of his work. A group of local citizens purchased
and donated a work by him to the National Gallery of Art. In
recognition and praise they stated: "From the standpoint of art you
have contributed works of genius that will stand for all time: while
your bearing as a man, citizen and friend has been of that modest and
yet far-reaching character that wins the love and retains the esteem of
those with whom you have come in contact."
Weyl died in 1914. His great-grandson, Christopher Wolf, has a large
collection of Weyl's works and continues to live in Washington, DC as a
fourth-generation Washingtonian. His grandson, Max Weyl II, was also a
collector as are his great-granddaughter, Nancy Weyl Seamon and
great-grandson, Kevin Weyl.
SOLD
InquireSOS |
|