Edgar Alwyn Payne was born in Washburn, Missouri, but there is uncertainty as to whether he was born on March 1, 1882, as is recorded on his marriage certificate in 1912, and his draft registration in 1942, or 1881, or 1883, as recorded in other sources. His parents were John Hill Payne and Nancy Ellen Reed. He was the second of eight children.

Essentially a self-taught artist, Payne left home around 1902 at the age of nineteen. He traveled for a number of years throughout the South, the Midwest, and in Mexico, taking various jobs as a house painter, sign painter, scenic painter, and portrait and mural artist. He settled in Chicago in 1907, where he enrolled in a portraiture class at the Art Institute of Chicago. Dissatisfied with the class, he left after only two weeks. At this time he began landscape painting in the form of murals and small easel works. He exhibited with the Palette and Chisel Club, from which he sold some of his paintings.

Payne visited California in 1909, and spent some time painting in Laguna Beach. He also visited San Francisco, where he met his future wife, artist Elsie Phillippa Palmer (1884-1971), who was working as a commercial artist. He visited California a second time in 1911, and upon his return to Chicago, he again met Elsie who had moved there to take a position as an artist in a commercial art firm.

Soon thereafter, a romance ensued. They were set to be married on the morning of November 9, 1912, but early that day, Edgar reached Elsie to ask that she contact all their guests and reschedule the wedding for later that afternoon, because “the light was perfect.” Elsie understood the artistic value of perfect light and readily complied. On January 12, 1914, their only child, a daughter named Evelyn Phillippa Payne, was born in Chicago.

On a visit to Santa Barbara, in 1916, Payne took a side trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and marveled at the beautiful, unspoiled beauty he encountered. This would be the first of countless trips to the Sierra and he would earn a solid reputation as the “King of the Mountains.”

The Paynes lived in Chicago until 1917, during which time they became well established in the local art community. Payne exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the Palette and Chisel Club. He painted commissioned murals and made annual trips to California. In 1921, Payne won the Martin B. Cahn Prize, at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In the summer of 1917, Payne accepted a significant commission for murals in the Congress Hotel in Chicago. The job was huge, requiring over 11,000 square feet of canvas. To produce these murals, Payne rented an old factory in Glendale, California, where the murals were painted. For this project, Payne hired Conrad Buff (1886-1975) as an assistant. In 1918, when the project was completed, they moved to Laguna Beach. Payne became active in the art colony there and was a founding member and first president of the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918.

Payne was a ceaseless traveler, who painted throughout California, Arizona, and New Mexico, as well as in Canada. No locale was too remote, and he spent a great deal of time in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, living for weeks at his elaborate campsites. Payne Lake, a lake high in these mountains, is named in his honor.

In the summer of 1922, the Paynes went to Europe, painting over a two-year period in France, Switzerland, and Italy. His favorite painting locations were the Alps and in the fishing ports of Chioggia, Italy, and Concarneau, in Brittany, France.

Chioggia is an ancient port located on a small island at the southern entrance to the Venice Lagoon off the Adriatic coast of Italy. For several centuries, Chioggia has served as one of Venice’s “farm islands” and was the source of much of the food consumed in Venice. Among other commodities, Chioggia furnished large quantities of domestic wine to the island city. Indeed, a number of Edgar’s Italian boat paintings bear titles as “Italian Wine Boats” and show the vessels loaded with rows of wine barrels.

Concarneau is one of the biggest ports in France. Situated along the Brittany coast, it has historically been home to a sizeable tuna fishing fleet. In keeping with age-old tradition, the fishermen of Concarneau still use huge nets of a distinctive blue color to haul in their catch.

In Switzerland, Payne was irresistibly drawn to the majestic Alps. His painting of Mont Blanc entitled The Great White Peak received an honorable mention at the Paris Salon in the spring of 1923.

After their return to the United States on September 22, 1924, the Paynes spent some time again in Chicago, then returned to Laguna Beach. Over the next several years they lived in California, Connecticut, and New York and made painting trips to the California Sierras, Utah, and New Mexico.

In 1928, another trip was made to Europe where Payne painted in the harbors of Chioggia and Brittany, this time staying only about three months. Upon his return, he continued to paint the California Sierra Nevada Mountains, a subject which earned him national renown. Payne’s long infatuation with the Sierra Nevada Mountains is documented in a film he produced entitled Sierra Journey.

In 1932, Edgar and Elsie separated but did not divorce. That same year, after a heated argument, Edgar parted from his long-time dealer and friend, Earl Stendahl (1888-1966). On February 9, 1935, Evelyn married John Burton Hatcher, in Los Angeles.

In 1946, Payne was diagnosed with cancer. His wife, Elsie, from whom he had been separated since 1932, reacted with love and immediacy. She closed her own studio and moved back with Edgar at his Seward Street house. She nursed him through his final months until his death in Hollywood, on April 8, 1947. Edgar Payne is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California.

The perpetuation of Edgar Payne’s memory became the life mission of his widow, Elsie. She did this by organizing a large number of exhibitions of his paintings. In 1952, Elsie, who was also a sculptor, created a bronze relief plaque of her husband for the Laguna Beach Art Association Gallery, now the Laguna Art Museum.

Edgar Payne was a member of the California Art Club, the Painters and Sculptors of Southern California, the Chicago Art Club, the Laguna Beach Art Association, the Palette and Chisel Club of Chicago, and the Salmagundi Club in New York City. His works were exhibited in Chicago and New York. His many awards included the Martin B. Cahn Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, 1921; a Gold Medal, California Art Club, 1925; and the Ranger Fund Purchase Award, National Academy of Design, 1929. In 1939, Payne was elected president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Society for Sanity in Art. In 1941, he wrote Composition of Outdoor Painting, a book which is still in print.

Written by (Mr.) Jean Stern
Director
The Irvine Museum Collection
at the University of California, Irvine
Institute and Museum for California Art

Thomas Lorraine Hunt was born in London, Ontario, Canada, on February 11, 1882. His was parents were Canadian artist John Powell Hunt and Phoebe Hogarth Hunt. He was the second of four children.

Hunt first studied with his father, John Powell Hunt (1854-1932), and later with Hugh Breckenridge (1870-1937) at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and in the summer, at his school in East Gloucester, Massachusetts.

In 1910, Hunt married Phoebe Hogarth, in London, Canada. By 1917, when he registered for the World War I draft, he was settled in Cleveland, Ohio, working in construction and painting in his spare time. In 1924, he came to California, living in Hollywood and in San Bernardino. In 1927 he established himself in Laguna Beach. He was a member of the California Art Club, the Laguna Beach Art Association and the San Diego Art Guild.

Thomas Hunt gradually evolved from Impressionism to a distinctive and unique form of Post Impressionism. His mature works are visual statements characterized by almost flat areas of vivid color arranged in representational patterns, resulting in bold, dramatic canvases that celebrate color. He was uncommonly modernistic for the period in which he worked and thus found it difficult to sell his works.

Thomas L. Hunt died on April 17, 1938, at Santa Ana Valley Hospital resulting from complications following an ulcer operation.

Written by (Mr.) Jean Stern
Director
The Irvine Museum Collection
at the University of California, Irvine
Institute and Museum for California Art

Joseph Kleitsch was born on June 6, 1882, in Nemet Szent Mihaly, what was then part of Hungary but now is in Romania. At the age of three, his mother died. His stepmother encouraged his artistic talents and Kleitsch began painting at the age of seven.

In his teens Joseph Kleitsch was apprenticed to a sign painter, but he left after about eighteen months to open his own studio as a portrait painter. In 1902, he left Hungary and made his way to Hamburg, from where he caught a ship to the United States, and eventually to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lived with a relative.

In 1904, he moved to Denver, Colorado, and on October 5, 1904, married Emma Multner, a woman he had met in Cincinnati. In Denver, Kleitsch earned a living by painting portraits of prominent businessmen. About 1907, he was in Hutchinson, Kansas, but, after only a short time, he and Emma relocated to Mexico City, residing there between 1907 and 1909.

In 1911, Kleitsch and Emma returned to Mexico City, in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. He was honored by a portrait commission to paint Mexican President Francisco Madero (1873-1913) and his wife. The two returned to the United States in 1912 and lived in Chicago. Kleitsch continued his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and painted portraits for a living. In 1913, Emma Kleitsch died suddenly from nephritis.

On July 22, 1914, Kleitsch married Edna Gregatis, an art teacher in the Chicago public schools. The ceremony was performed by a judge in the Cook County Municipal Court. On May 21, 1915, a son named Eugene was born in Chicago.

In 1921, Kleitsch and Edna moved to Laguna Beach. He was already acquainted with artists who had preceded him, most notably Edgar Payne, whom he had befriended in Chicago. He again established himself as a portrait painter, his main source of income, but also began to paint landscapes and street scenes of Laguna Beach and its environs. He was a bold colorist, employing a bravura brush stroke. He especially enjoyed painting in and around Laguna Beach, often choosing views that he knew would soon succumb to real estate development.

In 1925, Kleitsch and Edna traveled to Europe, visiting Spain and Giverny, France, where he painted portraits and landscapes. He returned to Laguna Beach in November, 1927.

Joseph Kleitsch died at the age of forty-nine on November 16, 1931, in Santa Ana, California. He was struck down by a heart attack in front of the Santa Ana Courthouse.

Written by (Mr.) Jean Stern
Associate Director
The University of California, Irvine
Institute and Museum for California Art

WILLIAM WENDT

Born on February 2, 1865, in Benzen, Germany
Died on December 29, 1946, in Laguna Beach, California

Wilhelm Friedrich Heinrich Christian Wendt was born on February 2, 1865, in Benzen, southeast of Lübz, Germany. His father was Johann Joachim August Wendt and his mother was Friederike Schulz.

Coming to the United States in 1880, Wendt settled in Chicago where he worked in a commercial art firm producing stock paintings using various names other than his own. Essentially self-taught, he attended evening classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for only a brief period. Dissatisfied with figure studies, he preferred painting landscapes and quickly became an active exhibitor in various Chicago art shows, winning the Second Yerkes Prize at the Chicago Society of Artists exhibition, at the Art Institute, in 1893.

Wendt kept a studio on Wabash Avenue, directly across the hall from one held by sculptor Julia Bracken (1869-1942). They met in 1889, and became close friends.

Wendt was also a close friend of artist George Gardner Symons (1862-1930), and together they made a number of trips to California between 1896 and 1904. In 1898, the two traveled to the art colony at St. Ives in Cornwall, England. Upon his return, works from those trips were then exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Wendt married the sculptor Julia M. Bracken on June 25, 1906, in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Los Angeles, where he bought the studio-home of Elmer and Marion Wachtel, on Sichel Street. Already a successful painter, he quickly became a leading member in the Los Angeles art community and was a founding member of the California Art Club in 1909, serving as president from 1911 to 1914, and again from 1917 to 1918.

In 1912, he was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design, in New York. He built a home and studio in the art colony of Laguna Beach in 1918, and moved there permanently in 1923. He was a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918, and although somewhat shy and reclusive, he was Laguna’s most important resident artist. Arthur Millier, the art critic for the Los Angeles Times, called Wendt “the man who has most truthfully pictured Southern California.”

In 1926, he was given a solo exhibition at Stendahl Art Galleries, in Los Angeles. That year, he made his last trip to Europe, visiting and painting in Germany. In 1939, he had a retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum. By 1940, Wendt had retired from painting.

William Wendt received numerous awards for his works. Among these were a Bronze Medal, Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901; a Silver Medal, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904; and a Silver Medal, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. In 1925, he received a Gold Medal at the Pan-American Exhibition in Los Angeles for Where Nature’s God Hath Wrought, which is now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

On March 18, 1946, Wendt converted into the Roman Catholic Church. He died on December 29, 1946, in Laguna Beach, and was buried next to his wife Julia at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange. A street in Laguna Beach, Wendt Terrace, was named in his honor.

To Wendt, nature was a divine manifestation and he viewed himself as nature’s faithful interpreter. Only rarely did he include people or animals in his landscapes. He worked out of doors, sometimes sketching but usually painting large, finished works en plein air. His early works feature the feathery brush strokes and hazy atmosphere of Impressionism. In his later works, after about 1912-1915, he employed a distinctive block-like brushwork giving solidity to his renditions of natural forms. A prolific painter, he was known as the “dean” of Southern California landscape painters.

Written by (Mr.) Jean Stern
Associate Director
The University of California, Irvine
Institute and Museum for California Art

From a letter by William Wendt to William Griffith, 1898:

The perfection of this spring day and the gladness thereof make one think of Genesis when the earth was young and morning stars sang to each other. The earth is young again. The peace, the harmony which pervades all, give a Sabbath-like air to the day, to the environment. One feels that he is on holy ground, in Nature’s Temple…The perfume of the flowers and of the bay tree are wafted on high, like incense…The birds sing sweet songs of praise to their Creator. In the tops of the trees, the soughing of the wind is like the hushed prayers of the multitude in some vast cathedral. Here the heart of man becomes impressionable. Here, away from the conflicting creeds and sects, away from the soul-destroying hurly-burly of life, it feels that the world is beautiful, that man is his brother, that God is good.

Letter to William Griffith (1866-1940), 1898

ANNA HILLS

Born on January 28, 1882, in Ravenna, Ohio
Died on June 13, 1930, in Laguna Beach, California

Anna Althea Hills was born on January 28, 1882, in Ravenna, Ohio. Her father was the Reverend Aaron Merritt Hills and her mother was Althea Alamanda Ford. Anna was the second of five children. In 1886, her mother died and her father remarried. Because of her father’s occupation, Anna’s family moved often, living in several places throughout the Midwest.

In 1898, Hills enrolled for art classes at Olivet College in Michigan. In 1902, she studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 1905, at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City. She worked with Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922) for two years. In 1908, she went to Europe where she took classes at the Académie Julian in Paris. She traveled and painted in Holland and England, where she studied with John Noble Barlow (1861-1917).

She returned to the United States and moved to Los Angeles around 1912. A year later she relocated to Laguna Beach where she lived for the rest of her life. Hills became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918. She was a tireless leader of that group, serving as president from 1922 to 1925 and again from 1927 to 1930. Under her leadership, the association raised the funds necessary to purchase the land and build a permanent art gallery. The Laguna Beach Art Association Gallery later became the Laguna Art Museum.

Originally a figure and genre painter, Hills turned to landscape painting after her move to California. She was a popular and highly respected teacher and had many art students, notably George Brandriff (1890-1936) and Joane Cromwell (1895-1969). She actively promoted the visual arts through lectures and by organizing exhibitions that circulated among Orange County public schools.

In addition to the Laguna Beach Art Association, Hills held memberships in the California Art Club and the Washington Water Color Club. Among her awards were a Bronze Medal at the Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, in 1915; a Bronze Medal, at the California State Fair, in 1919; and the Landscape Prize, at the Laguna Beach Art Association, 1922 and 1923.

Anna Hills died on June 13, 1930, in Laguna Beach, California. She is interred at Fairhaven Memorial Park, in Santa Ana.

Written by (Mr.) Jean Stern
Associate Director
The University of California, Irvine
Institute and Museum for California Art

Top Photo: Anna Hills at her easel (photo courtesy of The University of California, Irvine, Museum and Institute for California Art)