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Quite a Big Diehl
June 19 - August 5, 2007
Wall text from the exhibition
Named for the legendary king, Arthur Diehl was born in
London in 1870. His father, a composer and violinist, conducted the Royal
London Orchestra. His mother was an accomplished pianist as well as a prolific
author of romance novels. Not surprisingly, the young Arthur had considerable
musical talent. He played the piano and wrote music and at age 16 even conducted
the orchestra in his father's place in an emergency. But his greatest interest
was painting, and he spent many hours copying works at the National Gallery
and British Museum. After he'd quickly absorbed all he could from several
local artists, his mother took him to see Sir Frederic Leighton, president
of the Royal Academy. He pronounced Arthur a "genius" and recommended
that he be sent to Italy to study. Arthur was 15 when he became a student
of a Milanese artist named Luigi Stefani and continued the discipline of
copying paintings in museums during two years in Italy. At age 19, he entered
a painting, "Aldeburgh Quay," in a show at the Royal Academy.
It was not only accepted, but sold for 100 pounds.
This promising beginning came to an abrupt halt in 1893,
when the 23-year-old Diehl immigrated to New York, perhaps looking for fresh
opportunities, perhaps as a form of rebellion against parental expectations.
(He had already married a woman more than twice his age, causing a strained
relationship with his family. She eventually followed him to New York, but
died soon later.) One of the worst economic depressions in U.S. history
began in 1893, and life proved difficult for a new arrival with no connections.
Finally, penniless and hungry after pawning his good clothes, Diehl took
a job making copies of European oil paintings imported from Vienna. He knew
it was very commercial, but it was a way to make a living and he was good
at it. And because he had the ability to paint from memory, he was fast,
too. Then, when market prices dropped, he became even faster, learning shortcuts
to increase his production.
In 1898, Diehl married another older woman who had been
in the theater, and they moved to the suburbs in New Jersey. Through his
wife's connections, he met the famous actors John and Lionel Barrymore and
briefly acted with their touring company. In 1904, 10 months after the death
of his second wife, he married Jennie Ludwig, who was his own age and the
daughter of Austrian immigrants. Five years later, they had one son, Arthur
Charles Vidal Diehl.
Although Diehl continued painting copies for the New York
firm until 1909, he was also selling work of his own to various companies
-- quite a lot of it under pseudonyms, as many as four or five. Deciding
to strike out on his own, he opened a studio at Asbury Park, a resort on
the Jersey shore. "My idea," he later wrote, "was to open
a public studio where I could work and where people were free to come and
go as they pleased. It was a novelty then because artists usually painted
in secret and only brought out their work for show after it was finished.
Because it was such a novelty, my place was crowded. I had not a moment
to myself. In fact, very often I could not get time enough to eat properly.
Quite frequently I took in hundreds of dollars a day." In the next
couple of years, Diehl had studios in Lakewood and Leonia, also in New Jersey.
Diehl and his family first came to Cape Cod for the summer
of 1912, renting a cottage at Ballston Beach in Truro. Extending their stay
into November, they spent the last month in some rooms in a home on Johnson
Street in Provincetown. When they returned there the following summer, Diehl
set up a studio at the corner of Johnson and Commercial streets. In 1914,
he moved his studio to another Commercial Street location, which with the
exception of a couple of years during World War I, remained his summer studio
for the rest of his life. His residence, however, soon became the Upper
Cape. He and his family initially spent a winter at the Dan'l Webster Inn
in Sandwich. Eventually, they rented half of a house in Monument Beach.
In the summer, Diehl would spend Sundays and Mondays at home, returning
to Provincetown on Tuesday mornings. In the off-season, he would often be
away for part of the winter, painting in another resort area or, sometimes,
in a department store as an attraction for customers. He genuinely enjoyed
interacting with people, and they typically found him fascinating, especially
his ability to so quickly. Such was his reputation as a speed painter that
Fox Movietones made a short of him at work in 1921.
When Diehl's better paintings are considered on their own
merits -- quite apart from how fast they were executed or what shortcuts
he may have taken -- they reveal a finely tuned sensitivity to light and
atmosphere and convey a strong sense of place. Furthermore, although he
was almost strictly a studio painter, they seem as spontaneous and of the
moment as if they'd been painted on location.
Both literally and figuratively, this exhibition wouldn't
be half of what it is without the assistance of Eugenia Diehl Pell, the
artist's granddaughter. Something approaching 50 percent of the works are
from her collection, including some of the most major pieces and some of
the most personal. But Genii, as she's known, was perhaps even more generous
in sharing her unpublished manuscript on Diehl with us. This contains virtually
all of the information she's accumulated about the grandfather who died
long before she was born. As she discovered when she began her research,
publicly available information is sketchy. But she had a father -- Diehl's
son -- who was an excellent source of stories and dates -- and who'd cared
enough to keep boxes of sketches, photographs, writings and letters. She
made our job so much easier -- and our understanding of Diehl so much richer
and more complete. We share her hope that Diehl be rediscovered and newly
appreciated and thank her more than words can ever sufficiently express.
-
Arthur Diehl the Showman
Another Provincetown artist, Ross Moffett, provided a colorful
description of Diehl in his 1964 book "Art in Narrow Streets,"
a history of the art colony's early years:
- "Provincetown then had the amazing and rather
magnificent Arthur V. Diehl, an Englishman, who painted and sold his pictures
in the building that for many years housed the Provincetown Art Shop. Diehl
would paint a dune or beach scene in a few minutes, while keeping up an
entertaining, impressive, and largely one-sided conversation for the benefit
of the onlookers or prospective customers. On occasion he might claim descent
from Napoleon, coupling with this story an involved explanation of legitimacy
that was not easy to follow or again tell how, when a boy of 16, he in
an emergency, conducted the Royal London Orchestra. With the right audience,
that is when other artists were not present, he was apt to launch into
a philosophical discussion of art. At a certain point the art of Rembrandt
would enter the discussion and at the end the listener would realize that
Diehl was in no respect Rembrandt's inferior."
-
- Incidentally, it seems Moffett was unnecessarily flip
with that last remark: Diehl revered Rembrandt, whom he considered "the
most immortal of all painters." When he saw Rembrandt's "The
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" at The Hague, he felt envy of
its dead creator. "It was not painted, it was the outcome of a creative
instinct that was greater than human reason. It was superhuman. It lives
so vividly. I almost feel that I could crawl into the grave of such a man,
to mingle with his ashes and die content."
-
-
(above: Arthur V. Diehl, "Unloading Fish," oil
on canvas, 21 x 29 inches; collection of Helen and Napi Van Dereck)
(above: Arthur V. Diehl, "Going Down," 1921, oil
on board, 29 x 48 1/2 inches; collection of Eugenia Diehl Pell)
(above: Arthur V. Diehl, "Pagan Prayer," oil on
board, 14 x 11 1/2 inches; collection of Eugenia Diehl Pell)
(above: Arthur V. Diehl, "Spiderman," 1920, oil
on board, 28 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches; collection of Eugenia Diehl Pell)
(above: Arthur V. Diehl, "Venice," oil on board,
17 1/4 x 29 1/4 inches; collection of Eugenia Diehl Pell)
Label text from the exhibition
-
- Ready to Sail
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF ROY AND SHEILA MENNELL
-
- London
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF EUGENIA DIEHL PELL
-
- Accompanied by his third wife, Jennie, Diehl made his
first trip back to his native England in 1908 and enjoyed a warm reunion
with his family. (He returned by himself five years later, but his parents
had died in the interim and it proved to be a less satisfying visit.) He
wrote home to his sister-in-law that he'd completed 150 paintings during
his stay. This bird's-eye view of London may have been painted then
though given his ability to paint from memory, there's no guarantee of
that. The painting is constructed of a patchwork of strokes that, when
viewed from a short distance, suggest a more detailed depiction of London
than really exists. But such landmarks as St. Paul's Cathedral are recognizable
and the scope and atmosphere of the city come clearly across.
-
- Provincetown 1913
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- In 1913, the first year that Diehl and his family spent
the entire summer in Provincetown, the artist set up a studio in a building
at the corner of Johnson and Commercial streets, just down the street from
where they were living. (It's the building that's cut off by the left-hand
edge of this canvas.) Formerly the Provincetown Art Shop, it had two large
windows where he could display his paintings. The steeple of the Methodist
Church is probably Motif No. 1 in Provincetown, but Diehl took the unusual
approach of including a telephone pole prominently in the foreground. It's
a snapshot effect, and rather than spoiling the scene, the pole gives the
painting much of its strength, vitality and historical interest. To some
extent, we even tend to look right past it, just as we've learned to do
with phone poles and wires in real life.
-
- Ballston Beach 1913
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF TRURO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
-
- In 1912, the Diehls spent their first summer on the Cape
at a cottage at Ballston Beach in Truro. The Pamet Lifesaving Station was
right next door to them, and Provincetown by then a bustling art
colony was the very next town. Ballston Beach is named for "Ozzie"
Ball, who in 1900 established a summer resort there with cottages, a community
hall, a dining hall and a bowling alley. Diehl did a superb job of capturing
the summer haze and the interrelationship between the soft green vegetation
and creamy sand. We don't know if the cottage where the Diehls stayed is
in this picture. But more likely since the artist painted this piece
after the fact their cottage was the vantage point from which Diehl
viewed this scene. All of the buildings are gone now.
-
- Dunes
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF LAWRENCE W. MULAIRE
-
- Dunes are one of the subjects that Diehl painted over
and over probably in part because they were one of the Outer Cape's
primary tourist attractions. But looking at this painting, you just have
to believe he also found them a source of beauty and inspiration. The tones
of the sand in sunlight and shadow, the forms of the peaks and the growth
of the vegetation are all so true few plein-air artists could
be more convincing. Plus, the sheer freedom of the brushwork echoes the
experience of being out on the dunes, feeling and smelling the salt breezes.
Few, if any, of Diehl's dune scenes contain figures that might detract
from the sweep of the curves and purity of the sand, although there's often
the tracks of wagon wheels, leading you into the picture.
-
- Unloading Fish
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- This beautiful painting is owned by Napi Van Dereck,
whose collection of Provincetown art is a rich source of information regarding
Provincetown history. (Portions of his collection are always part of the
ambiance at Napi's restaurant in Provincetown.) Van Dereck suspects that
the setting for "Unloading Fish" may be the mouth of the Pamet
River in Truro. In those days, when Cape Cod Bay was a prime fishing ground,
fishermen may have sometimes made arrangements for a wagon to meet them
on the shore. That way, they could offload their fish and quickly go back
to fishing, rather than having to sail all the way into Provincetown Harbor.
The horse-drawn wagon would have taken the fish to the nearby cold storage.
-
- Painting on a Dutch Gin Bottle
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on clay bottle
-
- PRIVATE COLLECTION
-
- It's likely Diehl not only painted the bottle, but drank
the contents. He did struggle with alcohol for a number of years, which
is why the Diehls began spending summers on the Cape: His wife was hoping
the change would do him good. When the Diehls stayed at the Dan'l Webster
Inn in Sandwich in 1915, Arthur was at a low point hardly able to
work and unable to keep food down. One day, the family was walking on the
beach and took shelter in a hermit's shack during a thunderstorm. The man
induced Arthur to try some clam broth. When it made him feel better, Jennie
made sure he had it on a regular basis. His health improved, and he soon
stopped drinking entirely.
-
- Schooner at Lumber Wharf 1914
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- Diehl began painting boats moored at wharves as soon
as he came to Provincetown and never stopped, so there are a great many
around. It's easy when coming across them one at a time to
think that he painted the same scene repeatedly, perhaps without much thought.
That's why we've brought so many of them together in one room, to give
ample opportunity for comparison, to show how wonderfully different they
really are. Different wharves. Different perspectives. Different atmospheric
conditions. Different activities. There's exceptional precision in this
early piece, representing the Lumber Wharf, where schooners delivered lumber
from Boston. It was also called Higgins Wharf after Higgins Lumber Yard,
which was located at the wharf.
-
- Provincetown Fishermen
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COURTESY OF DIAMOND ANTIQUES AND FINE ART, WEST HARWICH
-
- Diehl included an unusual number of figures in this painting,
with several of them playing a much more prominent role in the picture
than normal. First we encounter the man with the white goatee and barrel
right up close and personal in the foreground. Then our eyes travel back
to see all of the other activities going on along the dock.
-
- Boatyard, Provincetown 1923
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF LAWRENCE W. MULAIRE
-
- Diehl painted on canvas when he first came to Provincetown,
but switched to surfaces such as Beaverboard, a building material made
of compressed wood fibers that's often used for walls. The impetus may
have been that no one in Provincetown sold canvas at that time; artists
had to bring it with them. But Diehl found he actually preferred the board
because of the way it absorbed oil paints. Notice how, in this work and
some others, he even left small areas of the fiberboard unpainted, allowing
its brown to work in helping to create the scene. It was yet another shortcut,
but he used it very effectively.
-
- Shore View of Provincetown
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- The steeple of the Methodist Church (which is now the
library) rises above the busy area of the waterfront at the end of Johnson
Street, where there was a cold storage. There's no date on the painting,
but it was probably done sometime after World War I. By then, Diehl's palette
was getting lighter, and he had adopted a more impressionistic approach.
Compare the water here, painted with broken brushwork, with the water in
"Schooner at Lumber Wharf" on the wall to your left.
-
- Down the Lane 1924
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF ROY AND SHEILA MENNELL
-
- "Pretty" seems as good a word as any to describe
this airy, summery little Provincetown painting. At some point after World
War I, Diehl began to frequently mix a lot of white into his paints, as
well as using it straight from the tube. It gives some paintings a kind
of tinted look that can make them seem a bit illustrative. Here, it seems
entirely appropriate for a hot summer day, when the sun is sapping colors
of their strength.
-
- Center Street Looking South
1926
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- Abstract Wharf, Provincetown
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF EUGENIA DIEHL PELL
-
- During the teens and '20s, some of the most cutting-edge
art in the country was being produced in Provincetown. Impressionism
once considered radical was pretty much status quo. Art students
were coming from all over the country to paint outdoors on location at
summer schools, such as Charles W. Hawthorne's Cape Cod School of Art.
And artists like E. Ambrose Webster, Blanche Lazzell, Agnes Weinrich, Karl
Knaths and Oliver Chaffee were doing their own takes on such European movements
as fauvism and cubism. Meanwhile, with all of this modernism swirling around
him, Arthur Diehl was resolutely painting in the traditional style he'd
developed in Europe in the late 1800s sometimes brightened with a
touch of impressionism. Occasionally, an art student would challenge him,
suggesting that he didn't paint abstractly because he couldn't. Diehl sometimes
responded by showing that he could. His understanding of what the abstractionists
were doing probably didn't go very deep he didn't care. But this
is really a perfectly respectable little painting with considerable verve.
-
- Provincetown Wharf (top)
- On the Wharf Provincetown (bottom)
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- PRIVATE COLLECTION
-
- Diehl painted this configuration of boat and wharf innumerable
times and undoubtedly sold it to innumerable Provincetown tourists,
especially in these smaller sizes.
-
- AT RIGHT:
-
- Cannery Wharf 1928
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- During 1928, when Diehl realized he was dying of cancer,
he painted furiously to produce a backlog of works his family could sell
when he was gone. It seems that, during this time, many of his paintings
took on a bluish cast, such as we find in "Cannery Wharf" and
in the smaller of the two wharf scenes above. Art historians have often
found that artists use darker or more subdued colors during periods of
ill health or unhappiness. But the blue seems appropriate enough in this
end-of-the-day scene, and the puffy white clouds and soaring seagulls add
a peaceful, elevating, even spiritual feeling.
-
- Playing on the Dock
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF EUGENIA DIEHL PELL
-
- The focus on the figures makes this a highly unusual
wharf scene for Diehl. But then, how many early Provincetown wharf scenes
are there by any artist in which two girls are the protagonists?
There's clearly a story being told here, and it's no doubt open to interpretation.
Our take is that the girls perhaps sisters have been sent to
the dock to pick up the fish. Given her surprised expression and two-handed
grip, it appears the younger one may have momentarily lost control of the
basket, causing some of those expertly painted fish to spill out. The older
girl looks amused, while the fishermen in the background enjoy the light-hearted
moment. One suspects Diehl observed the incident, too, and conjured it
up later in his studio. He generally does a wonderful job of making us
feel his figures are in motion, whether they're close up as they
are here or only represented by a few shorthand brushstrokes in the
middle distance.
-
- ABOVE:
-
- The Old Cannery Wharf 1913
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF HELEN AND NAPI VAN DERECK
-
- Ninety-four years later and the paint still looks wet
on this subtle foggy-day scene dating from the first year the Diehls spent
the summer in Provincetown. The tall, tapered chimney on the fish house
identifies this as Cannery Wharf. Sardines a major catch in the late
19th- and early 20th-century were canned here. Compare this piece
with "Schooner at Lumber Wharf," the painting on the opposite
wall with very similar subject matter. Although painted just a year later,
it shows quite a different approach. Diehl varied his style to suit his
purposes.
-
- Provincetown Wharf
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF EUGENIA DIEHL PELL
-
- Diehl excelled at suggesting figures with just a few
well-placed brushstrokes. He developed a kind of shorthand that tells us
a great deal about what they're doing and what they're wearing with, often,
even a hint of their age.
-
- Lots of Little Ones
-
- Arthur Diehl's prolific output he once estimated
he painted about 10 pieces a day included many small and even miniature
paintings. (The two smallest here measure about 2 by 2_ inches.) And by
keeping his work affordable, with a price range from $1 to $300, Diehl
generally sold about the same number. He didn't scrimp on quality in these
exquisite little pieces even the smallest make their own special
statement. Each one of them proudly bears his distinctive angular signature,
suggesting he considered them completed works on the level of any other.
Although he surely had economic reasons for painting small, affordable
pieces, Diehl had other motivations as well. He once wrote: "I have
worked to provide people with art that they loved and could afford. I used
a casual 'size 'em up' sliding scale and sold picture according to what
people could afford, sometimes selling them for one dollar. I have seen
to it that many average families have art, real art, hanging in their homes.
Judging from how many letters I receive telling me how much they are loved
and enjoyed, I have succeeded."
-
- Railroad Wharf With the S.S. Dorothy Bradford 1914
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on canvas
-
- COLLECTION OF CAPE COD PILGRIM MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION,
PILGRIM MONUMENT AND PROVINCETOWN MUSEUM
-
- This little painting offers a nice slice of Provincetown
history. Operated by the Cape Cod Steamship Co. of Boston, the Dorothy
Bradford was an excursion boat that ran between Boston and Provincetown,
beginning in 1911 (three years before the picture was painted). The ship
was named for a Pilgrim, the first wife of William Bradford, who fell overboard
and drowned when the Mayflower stopped at Provincetown Harbor in 1620.
Built by Neafie & Levy of Philadelphia in 1889, the ship was 228 feet
long and had a three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine powered by
two single-ended Scotch boilers. It was broken up in 1937 when the steamship
company folded. The wharf once called Steamship Wharf became
Railroad Wharf when tracks were added around 1900 so freight delivered
by boats could be transferred to trains.
-
- The activity on the wharf is all interesting, but the
fashionably dressed lady, placed front and center, rules the picture with
her self-confident pose almost like she's having her picture taken
at the end of a visit to the Cape, before sailing home to Boston. She certainly
evokes the period and the pleasure of summer leisure. In any case, it would
be a fairly ordinary scene without her.
-
- Pines at Eve
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF EUGENIA DIEHL PELL
-
- Provincetown Garden
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF ROY AND SHEILA MENNELL
-
- Sheep Cote
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- PRIVATE COLLECTION
-
- Sunset
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- PRIVATE COLLECTION
-
- Moonlight
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COURTESY OF DIAMOND ANTIQUES AND FINE ART, WEST HARWICH
-
- Dunes, Cape Cod
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on fiberboard
-
- COLLECTION OF MRS. CLAIBORNE PELL
-
- Country Path
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on cardboard
-
- COURTESY OF DIAMOND ANTIQUES AND FINE ART, WEST HARWICH
-
- Provincetown Wharf
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on cardboard
-
- COURTESY OF DIAMOND ANTIQUES AND FINE ART, WEST HARWICH
-
- Going Down 1921
-
- Arthur V. Diehl (1870-1929)
- Oil on board
-
- COLLECTION OF EUGENIA DIEHL PELL
-
- We're uncertain what ship is represented in "Going
Down" though we'd be more than happy to hear suggestions. Judging
from the number of lifeboats, it looks like it was probably one of the
steamers that carried passengers from Boston or New York to Provincetown.
There are, however, two stories concerning unrelated wrecks that have been
passed down in Diehl's family.
-