catalog text
FREDERICK R. WAGNER (AMERICAN, 1864-1940)
"Evening Pasture"
Oil on canvas | Signed lower right "F. Wagner"
Item # 103GPP23Z
A glowing work that retains the early gallery label from Newman Galleries in Philadelphia identifying the work as "Evening Pasture". We are pleased to present it in such fine conserved condition after layers wax residue and a very stubborn discolored varnish were removed to reveal a well-preserved autumnal scene capturing golden hour across wild fields of foliage centered around two trees with hints of the edge of town in the distance. It is executed on canvas relined on linen and is signed in the lower right corner "F. Wagner". It remains a fine example of work from one of Pennsylvania's earliest Impressionists.
ARTIST
Frederick R. Wagner was born in Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania on December 20 of 1861 to Conrad and Antonio Wagner. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1878 through 1884. As one of the earliest Pennsylvania Impressionists, Wagner started his painting career executing landscape in California throughout the 1890s before settling down in Philadelphia. In 1921 he opened a studio there while simultaneously founding the Addingham School of Painting just outside of Philadelphia. Contemporary artist and friend Walter Baum described Wagner's impressionistic style when he observed "Wagner was sensitive to nature's changing moods…his approach to nature was not with a photographic eye. Instead he seemed to allow a subject to play upon his senses and quickly, as if by intuition, he would capture its most fleeting effect.”
Wagner exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts first in 1882 and every year between 1906 and 1940, winning the coveted Fellowship Prize for his 1914 scene Snow and Ice. Other exhibitions include the 1913 Armory Show in New York, the National Academy of Design, the biennial exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art between 1907 and 1935, the St. Louis Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Art Club, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Sketch Club and in 1922 at the international exhibition of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh where he won honorable mention.
His work is held in the permanent collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Woodmere Art Museum, the Reading Public Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy, the James A. Michener Art Museum, the Sewell E. Biggs Museum of American Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Wagner died on the 14th of January, 1940.
Measurements: 24 1/8" H x 30 1/8" W [canvas]; 31 1/4" H x 37 1/4" W [frame]
Condition Report:
Wax relining on linen tacked over new stretcher bars. Professionally cleaned and conserved, sealed in a fresh Damar varnish. Under UV examination a few spots of inpainting in the right tree and one spot directly below that tree near the lower edge; pigment flares somewhat obscure a full surface examination. Canvas is sturdy and stable with minimal trace craquelure throughout. Housed in a replaced silver-and-gilt frame.