Gloucester Harbor

Theodore Wendel’s Gloucester Harbor is a view from Banner Hill looking west over the peninsula called Rocky Neck on the eastern shore of the long harbor at Gloucester, Massachusetts. On both shores of the nearer stretch of water, known as Smith’s Cove, modest, pastel-tinted, wood-frame houses lend a note of domesticity at odds with Gloucester’s status as a major fishing port. Sailboats float at their moorings, and distant sails can be glimpsed in the harbor beyond. In the foreground, the pale track of East Gloucester’s street trolley, its electrical pole thrusting itself into the center of the composition, anchor the scene in prosaic modernity. With its loose, even rough brushwork, bright pastel tones, high horizon, and horizontal format verging toward square, Gloucester Harbor demonstrates Wendel’s adherence to a mode of painting termed decorative impressionism, a modern approach in which he had been an American pioneer.

Gloucester had ranked as a popular destination and subject for artists ever since native Fitz Henry Lane had painted such works as his own Gloucester Harbor (TF1993.21); in the following generation, Francis Silva, who painted Ten Pound Island, Gloucester (TF 1999.137)  was one of a number of artists who visited. Wendel may have visited Gloucester as early as 1888 but certainly was there in the summer of 1890, during which he introduced impressionism to other painters as he briefly substituted as instructor of the summer class conducted by painter Frank Duveneck. In Europe in the late 1870s, Duveneck had been instructor and mentor to Wendel and a host of other young American artists, mostly fellow Ohio natives, known as the “Duveneck Boys.” In the summers of 1900, 1901, and 1902, Wendel and many other members of this group, including painters such as John Henry Twachtman and Joseph DeCamp, were reunited in Gloucester. They congregated at Rocky Neck, which had become a major seasonal artists’ colony. Wendel may have painted his Gloucester Harbor during one of those three summers. But as a resident of Ipswich, Massachusetts, only thirteen miles to the northwest, he very likely returned to Gloucester on a subsequent occasion.

The view of Rocky Neck from Banner Hill was a popular subject among impressionist painters working in Gloucester around the turn of the twentieth century. Similar compositions by Twachtman, Willard Metcalf, and Childe Hassam share the high horizon, panoramic perspective, and nearly-square format of Wendel’s painting. Those three artists, however, focused their gazes to the northwest toward Gloucester’s bustling industrial waterfront and commercial streets with their backdrop of distant church spires. Wendel, in contrast, turned away from the city to look directly west toward Stage Fort Park and the relatively undeveloped land beyond it on the distant shore of the outer harbor. He presents Gloucester as a quaint historic village surviving into modern times, the image that had already transformed the town into a major tourist destination.

Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Ships at Sea: Sailing Through Summer, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 6–August 26, 2001.

American Classics from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–June 15, 2003.

La Scène américaine, 1860–1930 (Americans at Home, 1860–1930), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, July 10–October 30, 2005.

La Scène américaine, 1860–1930 (Americans at Home, 1860–1930), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, Giverny, France, April 1–October 29, 2006.

Curtis, Judith A. Rocky Neck Art Colony, 1850–1950, Gloucester, Massachusetts. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Rocky Neck Art Colony, Inc., 2008. Text, p. 59; ill. p. 58 (color).

Buckley, Laurene. Theodore Wendel: True Notes of American Impressionism. North Adams: The Artist Book Foundation, 2019. Ill. pl. 28, p. 129 (color).