Top-100 artists:
We use our proprietary AI - LiveArt Estimate™ to calculate current market value for each artwork. Based on this data LiveArt is able to provide numerous insights into artist and artwork financial performance, including:
See the measure of artist investment performance relative to risk. A higher ratio suggests better risk-adjusted returns, indicating more consistent performance with less risk.
Explore the most prolific periods in an artist's career based on artwork production volume and current market value. It also segments these periods by category, offering insights into when the most valuable pieces were created in each category.
Free to sign up. No credit card required.
| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aug 7, 2018 | Bonhams | Los Angeles | California and Western Paintings and Sculpture | 42 | $****** - ****** | Patriarchs of the Grove |
paintings
101.6 x 127 cm (40 x 50 in)
oil on canvas
signed and dated 'WILLIAM WENDT 1920' (lower left), titled (on the stretcher bar), inscribed '347' (on the reverse)
is notable. The Strongs arrived in Massachusetts during the Colonial Period, but branched out to Rochester, New York in 1821 with Ezra Strong (1777-1846). He was a medical doctor by training, but became a merchant by 1809. Ezra Strong laid the groundwork for civic and business engagement of the Strong family in the Rochester area, where he raised six children, including Alvah Strong (1809-1885). Alvah Strong became very influential in town as the founder and associate publisher of the Rochester Democrat, a whig-party newspaper which he ran for 30 years. 1 He was effectively the patriarch of the Rochester clan, serving as a deacon for his local church and a namesake for two generations. Alvah's son, Henry Alvah Strong (1838-1919), became the best-known descendant as a partner and the first president of the Eastman Kodak Company from 1880 to 1919. He was by far the most commercially successful of the family, amassing considerable wealth but also establishing a legacy of philanthropy. Henry Alvah and his wife Hattie M. Strong were known collectors of paintings and Native American baskets, and likely set a precedent for the heirs. Alvah Griffin Strong (1900-1966) was a grandson of Henry Alvah Strong, and like his sibling, inherited shares of Kodak stock in Trust. By the age of 25, he had a considerable inheritance, allowing him to commission a 48-acre country estate and 20,000 square foot mansion called Tuckaway Farm, in addition to owning Alasa Farms on Sodus Bay.
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Exhibition of Paintings by William Wendt and Sculpture by Julia Bracken Wendt, September 22 - October 23, 1921, no. 7.
Los Angeles, Exposition Park, Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, Thirteenth Annual Exhibition California Art Club, October 19 - November 19, 1922, no. 77 (awarded the Mrs. Henry E. Huntington Prize).
Oakland Art Gallery, Fourth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, February 1926.
Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, William Wendt and His Work, April 15 - May 15, 1926, no. 72.
Spokane, Washington, Jundt Art Museum, Images about the American West, January 9 - May 13, 2017.
Letter to Earl Stendahl, May 15, 1922.
Exhibition of Paintings by William Wendt and Sculpture by Julia Bracken Wendt, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1921 [exh. checklist], no. 7, n.p.
"Prize Winners Named," Los Angeles Times, November 5, 1922, p. I15, illustrated.
Quarterly bulletin of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, Vol. IV, No. 2, January 1923, cover illustration.
Letter to Earl Stendahl, November 14, 1923.
Letter to William Wheeler, December 4, 1923.
California Life, January 19, 1924, p. 10, illustrated.
Letter from Earl Stendahl, January 22, 1924.
California Graphic, June 28, 1924, p. 11, illustrated.
Letter to Earl Stendahl, November 2, 1925.
Letter to Earl Stendahl, January 20, 1926.
Antony Anderson, Fred Hogue, Alma May Cook, and Arthur Millier, William Wendt and His Work, Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, 1926, p. 86, no. 72, color illustration on dust jacket and black and white full page illustration.
Oxnard Courier, April 17, 1926, n.p.
California Graphic, April 17, 1926, cover illustration.
Arthur Millier, "Of Art and Artists: Wendt's California in Largest Showing" Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1926, p. C30.
"Book Tells Life Story and Work of William Wendt," Laguna Life, May 14, 1926.
California Graphic, March 30, 1929, cover illustration.
Letter from Julia Bracken Wendt to Earl Stendahl, July 23, 1926.
Progressive Arizona, Vol. 3, No. 5, May 1927.
Letter to Earl Stendahl, July 29, 1927.
Letter to Earl Stendahl, January 18, 1928.
Marshall Breeden, The Romantic Southland of California, Los Angeles, The Kenmore Publishing Co., 1928, frontispiece.
California Graphic, March 30, 1929, cover illustration.
Unidentified clipping, circa late 1920s, with caption comparing Patriarchs of the Grove to Joyce Kilmer's poem, Trees: 'I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree...'
Constance W. Glenn and Sue Taylor-Winter, eds., In Praise of Nature: The Landscapes of William Wendt [exh. cat.], Long Beach, California State University, University Art Museum, 1989, p. 19.
John Alan Walker, Documents on the Life and Art of William Wendt, California's Painter Laureate of the Paysage moralise, Big Pine, 1992, p. 53, 54, 94, 99, 113, 176, no. 513.
Will South, Jean Stern, Janet Blake, In Nature's Temple, The Life and Art of William Wendt, Irvine, 2008, p. 249, black and white archival image.
Melville Holmes and Kathryn Brogdon, "Images about the American West," American Art Review, Vol. XXIV, No. 2, March/April 2017, p. 94, color illustration.
Patriarchs of the Grove
signed and dated '·WILLIAM WENDT· 1920·' (lower left), titled (on the stretcher bar), inscribed '347' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
40 x 50in
overall: 51 1/4 x 61 1/4in
Painted in 1920
