Elmer Wachtel

Elmer Wachtel (1864-1929) was an American painter who lived and worked in Southern California. He was known for his impressionist landscapes.

Wachtel was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 21, 1864. He moved to California in 1882 to live subsequently his brother, who was in action in San Gabriel. Wachtel worked as a ranch hand and as a furniture gathering clerk even though saving child maintenance to attend art school. He as a consequence worked as a violinist, playing for the Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles. Wachtel was largely self-taught as a painter. He studied at the Art Students' League in New York for two months and then future at the Lambeth School of Art in London. Wachtel married sculptor Marion Kavanagh in 1904; the two lived in the Arroyo Seco region of Los Angeles. Wachtel was known for painting California's landscapes, rather than European landscapes. On August 31, 1929, Wachtel died rapidly while upon a painting trip in Guadalajara, Mexico.

During World War I, Wachtel became an informant for the U.S. Department of Justice by reporting to federal ham it up authorities alleged pro-German and antiwar statements by open-minded socialists and fellow artists.

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