Marion Kavanagh was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin[3] to James Kavanagh
and Jean Jo Auston Kavanagh.[4] Her English mother and Irish grandfather were also painters.[5]
She painted primarily figures and portraits in the east[5] and then changed to landscapes of the dramatic Californian and Southwestern terrain. Her medium of choice was watercolor, but she began painting in oils after her husband’s death.[2]
Wachtel was an involved in a number of arts organizations in the Southern California area, including the California Watercolor Society, Pasadena Society of Artists,[3] the Academy of Western Painters,[6] and the California Art Club.[7]She was also a member of the New York Watercolor Club, in New York City.[8]
Posthumous exhibitions
In 2010 an exhibition of Wachtel's work and that of two other turn-of-the-century artists, Annie Harmon and Mary DeNeale Morgan was held at the Saint Mary's College Museum of Art. There were nearly 100 landscape paintings of California in the show made by the en plein air artists.[9]
Hillside Path in Early Piedmont, ca. 1900, watercolor
Indian Girl, oil
Landscape, ca. 1918, watercolor, Laguna Art Museum, California
Near Santa Barbara, before 1907, oil
Oaks, ca. 1900-1910, watercolor
Sycamores, watercolor, Laguna Art Museum, California
Teton Park, oil
Notes
^Her year of birth is uncertain, there are many years of birth given for Wachtel ranging from 1873 to 1877.
References
^Marion Kavanagh Wachtel — Died May 22, 1954, State of California. California Death Index, 1940-1997. Sacramento, CA, USA: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics.
