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Acquired in 1936, The Drawbridge (Oil Tanker in Winter) depicts an oil tanker on a river. The scene is rendered in bright hues of blue, red, and white, and is applied in broad brushstrokes with a thick impasto, which is inherent to the impressionist style favored by the artist. Wagner drew his subject matter from the many industrial sites of Pennsylvania and New York City, "painting its smoke stacks and barges on the rivers with deep blues and sooty grays of the 'dark' Impressionist palette and incisive brushwork associated with Robert Henri's 'art for life' urbanism." (Grand Central Galleries)
Born in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1864, Wagner attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on a scholarship. After studying under Thomas Eakins, he began teaching at the Academy in 1878 and became Chief Demonstrator of Anatomy there in 1884. The following year, Wagner left Philadelphia for a painting tour of the West, travelling to San Antonio, Texas and later to Los Angeles, California, where he painted landscapes and portraits. Returning to Philadelphia around 1900, Wagner served as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press until 1902, when he moved to Norristown, Pennsylvania, to take up painting full time.
He was a frequent exhibitor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, winning a prize in 1914, and was included in the 1907, 1925 and 1928 shows at the National Academy of Design in New York. He also exhibited at the Carnegie Institute, winning an award at the 1922 annual. Wagner opened his own studio in the Fuller Building in Philadelphia in 1912 and began holding classes there. He taught outdoor painting at Addingham, and later taught at the Pennsylvania Academy.
In 1913, Wagner had two works accepted at the landmark Armory Show in New York City, and in 1922 he received an Honorable Mention at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. He was a member of the Philadelphia Sketch Club and the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. He also exhibited at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and participated in the opening exhibition of the group's new quarters on Walnut Street, opened in 1918. In that show Wagner was in the company of such well-known American painters as William Merrit Chase, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, and John Twachtman. Wagner's paintings are in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Fort Wayne Museum, Indiana; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Art Club; the Reading (Pa.) Museum; the Rochester Museum of Art; the St. Louis Museum of Art; and the Worcester (Mass.) Museum.
Sources:
Obituary, Art Digest, vol. 14, February, 1940, p. 26.
"Fred Wagner, Zabriskie Gallery," Art News, vol. 58, March 1959, p. 15.
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Transformations in the Modern American Mode, 1885-1945. New York: Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc., 1988.
Falk, Peter Hastings. The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design, 1901-1950. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1990.
Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who In American Art. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
White, Theo B. The Philadelphia Art Alliance: Fifty Years 1915-1965. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965.
This document copyright © 1996, Eric John Schruers