Carl Eytel

Coordinates: 33°49′21″N 116°32′02″W / 33.8224°N 116.5340°W / 33.8224; -116.5340
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Carl Eytel
realism
Patron(s)Martha M. Newkirk

Carl Eytel (September 12, 1862 – September 17, 1925) was a

German American artist who built his reputation for paintings and drawings of desert subjects in the American Southwest. Immigrating to the United States in 1885, he settled in Palm Springs, California in 1903. With an extensive knowledge of the Sonoran Desert, Eytel traveled with the author George Wharton James as he wrote the successful Wonders of the Colorado Desert, and contributed over 300 drawings to the 1908 work. While he enjoyed success as an artist, he lived as an ascetic and would die in poverty.[2] Eytel's most important work, Desert Near Palm Springs, hangs in the History Room of the California State Library.[3]

Life

Early life and immigration

Carl Eytel was born as Karl Adolf Wilhelm Eytel in

San Francisco Call and was "incited" to visit the California desert.[8]

Palm Springs

Eytel returned to Germany to study art for 18 months (1897–1898) at the Royal Art School Stuttgart and then re-immigrated to the United States.[5]: V.II, p. 18 [8][9]: 2  Wanting to be a cowboy,[10] he worked as a cowhand in the San Joaquin Valley and in 1903 he would settle in Palm Springs.[5]: V.II, p. 18 [6] Living in small cabins he built himself, Palm Springs would remain his home.[11] Eytel often walked on his travels, covering 400 miles in the Colorado Desert on foot.[7]: xl  On one of his travels, he was nearly lynched as a horse thief, and in 1918, during a trip to northern Arizona, he was threatened with lynching as a German spy.[7]: xliii [12]: 16 

Work

Pinus lambertiana (sugar-pine) by Eytel, from J. Smeaton Chase, Cone-bearing Trees of the California Mountains, 1911

While living for the most part as a "desert rat" and

American Southwest and accompanied author J. Smeaton Chase and painter Jimmy Swinnerton on their travels.[13][14] Serving as George Wharton James' guide to "every obvious and obscure location of importance", he illustrated James' two volume The Wonders of the Colorado Desert.[15] The work was successful and received generally favorable reviews.[7][9][16] The collaboration on the book lasted from 1903 to 1907.[8] Eytel's illustrations were also used by James in his 1906 article "The Colorado Desert: As General Kearney Saw It".[17]

Successes

By 1908 Eytel was exhibiting works in

realistic line art drawings to Chase's book, Cone-bearing Trees of the California Mountains.[21]

Besides his work in Wonders of the Colorado Desert and Cone-bearing Trees, Eytel contributed (both drawings and articles) to the best periodicals, including the Los Angeles Times [22] and, for nearly 14 years, the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.[6][8][23][24]: 85  (During his travels in the southwest he became friends with Los Angeles Times city editor Charles Lummis.[6]) A stone wall in the dining room of Dr. Welwood Murray's early hotel was covered with an Eytel mural of Palm Canyon.[25] His hundreds of drawings of native palms were his trademark and he became known as "The Artist of the Palms".[9]: 33 [24]: 103 [26] His work helped publicize early Palm Springs.[27] In 1977 his works were selling for $10,000 and under.[28]

"Creative Brotherhood"

Along with

naturalist Edmund C. Jaeger, and authors Chase and Charles Francis Saunders,[29] Eytel was a core member of what University of Arizona Professor Peter Wild called a "Creative Brotherhood"[5] that lived in Palm Springs in the early 20th century. Other Brotherhood members included cartoonist and painter Swinnerton,[30] author James, and photographers Fred Payne Clatworthy and Stephen H. Willard.[31][32]: 106–113  The men lived near each other (like Eytel, Jaeger built his own cabin), traveled together throughout the Southwest, helped with each other's works, and exchanged photographs which appeared in their various books.[5][33]

The Brotherhood lasted from 1915 when Jaeger, who was the teacher in the Palm Springs one-room school house, met Eytel and Chase. It ended in 1923 when Chase died.

Riverside Junior College in Riverside, California.[35]) Jaeger wrote the initial eulogy for Eytel upon his death[23] and in 1948, recalling his time with him, Jaeger said:

As an artist Eytel was largely self-taught.... Not widely schooled, but widely read. Eytel possessed a knowledge not only of the Greek and Roman classics but of the best literature of England, America and his native Germany. I never knew Eytel to sleep indoors. Trying to inure himself to hardships in the belief it would toughen his constitution....[12]

Over the years it was Eytel who served as their "spiritual figurehead".[36] Even after Jaeger left to complete his studies and Chase married the wealthy Isabel White (1917), the three, plus Saunders, often exchanged letters.[34]: 126–131, 153–158  [37] Suffering from a "hacking and persistent cough",[38] Eytel remained in Palm Springs, impoverished, and Swinnerton would buy art supplies for him. Later Eytel became a recluse.[6]: 50 

Smoketree School

Smoketree (Psorothamnus spinosus)

Journalist Ann Japenga has characterized Eytel's work as "Smoketree School" – a school which is named after a favorite desert art subject, the

impressionist Claude Monet. Other Smoketree artists include Carl Bray, Fred Chisnall, Maynard Dixon, Clyde Forsythe, Sam Hyde Harris, John Hilton, R. Brownell McGrew, Agnes Pelton, Hanson Puthuff and Swinnerton.[40]

Style and subjects

from J. Smeaton Chase Our Araby (1920)[41]

Like many artists of the desert southwest, Eytel's style was impressionistic.

Desert Bighorn Sheep, desert reptiles, and cattle. (His Mirage in the Desert (1905), painted for Wonders, depicts cattle and cowboys.)[6][7][18]

Desert near Palm Springs

Eytel depicted the life of

Cocopah people near Calexico, California were drawn as well.[43]

Prospectors working the Anaconda (Dale District) and Manana (Colorado River) mines in Arizona and the famous Picacho gold mine were drawn, as were the Rancho Guajome Adobe near Encinitas, California, the Sierra Bonita Ranch near Fort Grant, Arizona, turn of the century Tucson, Arizona, and the Yuma Territorial Prison, Yuma, Arizona.

His scenes from early Palm Springs included the stagecoach station and William Pester – "The Hermit of Palm Springs".[44]

California Fan Palms (Washingtonia filifera), a favorite of Eytel, in Palm Canyon, near Palm Springs

Eytel's

landscapes and mountain scenes in Wonders included:[7]

Honors

amphipappus fremontii
)

Eytel was a friend of the

Cahuilla people and they allowed him to be buried in their cemetery in Palm Springs after he died of tuberculosis in a Banning, California sanatorium.[12][23][24]: 100–101  His funeral and burial were arranged by Nellie Coffman, who had established the original Desert Inn in the Palm Springs village in 1909.[45]

Eytel received the following eulogy from Saunders writing in August 1926:

But to Carl Eytel, pioneer of Palm Springs artists, working there long before the world of fashion had heard of the place, Palm Springs was his home, and the desert his life. He knew it in all seasons, in all moods, and he painted it with a sort of religious ardor springing from unfailing love, in season and out. Others have been better draughtsmen than he, but when you look at a canvas by Eytel at his best you are looking into what seems the desert’s heart.[46]

His painting Desert near Palm Springs (1914) is displayed in the California History Room of the California State Library.[1] The Palm Springs Art Museum has a set of Eytel's sketches and displays various of his paintings.[47]

The desert shrub

amphipappus fremontii was given the common name "eytelia" in his honor.[48] The short "Via Eytel" in Palm Springs is named in his honor, as is the short "Eytel Road" in nearby Cathedral City.[49]

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b "Picture Catalog – Holdings". Sacramento, CA: California State Library. Archived from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  2. ^
    OCLC 36888109
    . No phrase epitomizes the life of Carl Eytel better than the cliche 'art for art's sake,' or for those who prefer the original language, L'art pour l'art.
  3. OCLC 2650242. Archived
    from the original on June 30, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  4. ^ a b German Immigrants, 1880s: Carl Eytel from Wurtemberg to Kansas in 1885 Archived March 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine arrived: April 11, 1885; occupation: hunter; destination: Kansas; native country: Wurtemberg; native city: Machingen; embarkation port: Hamburg; manifest number: 38415.
  5. ^
    OCLC 163456618
    .
  6. ^
    OCLC 1814783
    .
  7. ^
    OL 23361178M. (Available as a pdf file Archived March 1, 2014, at the Wayback Machine through the HathiTrust
    Digital Library.)
  8. ^
    ISSN 0458-3035
    . ...an elaborate and beautiful book... (subscription required)
  9. ^
    OCLC 5802826. [James'] epic, two volume book...[is] now a collector's item. Hudson's book was reviewed in: "Books for Desert Readers". Desert Magazine. 42 (4). Palm Desert, CA: Desert Magazine: 6–7. April 1979. Archived
    from the original on May 7, 2009. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  10. OCLC 443225. Archived
    from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  11. OCLC 12257730. Archived
    from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  12. ^ a b c Jaeger, Edmund C. (September 1948). "Art in a Desert Cabin" (PDF). Desert Magazine. 11 (11). Palm Desert, CA: Desert Press: 15–19. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 2, 2011. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
  13. ISBN 978-0934161350
    .
  14. OCLC 11531621
    . In June 1916, his old sketching companion...Eytel, visited Jimmy in Flagstaff....Jimmy wined and dined him, took him on a tour to the Grand Canyon and Hopiland.
  15. OCLC 2022836. Archived
    from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  16. ^ Reviews included:
    • Adams, Cyrus C. (March 2, 1907). "Wonders of the Far West: George Wharton James's New Book on the Colorado Desert" (PDF). The New York Times Saturday Review of Books. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 15, 2019. Retrieved August 30, 2012. ...its pictures are worthy of special mention. They are...graphic story tellers, for the artist has hit off admirably the characteristics of things...without waste of crayon. ...James says that no other man knows the Colorado Desert as Eytel knows it 'and his sketches are faithful portrayals of the objects he has seen and lived with.'
    • "A Guide to the New Books". The Literary Digest. XXXIV (7). New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls: 263–264. February 16, 1907. This elaborate treatise is a distinct contribution to the literature of the natural wonders of our country....The illustrations...are a notable feature...and admirably illustrate the text.
    • Gilmour, John Hamilton (February 3, 1907). "The Wonders of the Colorado Desert, California".
      San Francisco Call
      . 101 (65): Magazine, 3. He has written admirably and knowingly...and this...is in line with his previous works. ...It is a pity, though, that he has trusted to statements of a few people rather than investigated for himself....The book is well illustrated by Carl Eytel.
    • "Holiday Books of Travel and Description". The Dial. XLI (492): 454. December 16, 1906. A chapter, too, on Mr. Eytel himself is one of the best in the book.
    • OCLC 7568653. Archived
      from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  17. OCLC 214967241. Archived
    from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  18. ^
    Los Angeles Herald
    . 35 (278): II, 4. July 6, 1908. Retrieved August 31, 2012. Noted Painter About to Give Display – Lives Most Isolated Existence, Surrounded by Venomous Reptiles and is Extremely Popular Among the Indians
  19. Los Angeles Herald. 35 (284): II, 9. July 12, 1908. Archived
    from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved August 31, 2012. Carl Eytel, the famous scenic painter, is building a $1500 bungalow.
  20. Royal Academy and Royal Scotch Academy
    ....Arizona landscapes by C. Eytel, among which is a translation of a mirage very well expressed, are rather too vivid to be pleasing to those of quiet tastes....
  21. OCLC 3477527
    . The line-drawings are the work of my friend, Mr. Carl Eytel.
  22. OCLC 54384087. Archived
    from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  23. ^
    Riverside Press-Enterprise
    . Riverside, CA. His illustrations are to be found in many of the best periodicals and in the publications of Little, Brown & Co., of Boston. Many Southern California homes carry his canvases on their walls and hundreds of former guests of the Desert Inn treasure his remarkably executed pen drawings....
  24. ^
    OCLC 17171891
    .
  25. ^ Shumway, Nina Paul (July 1949). "Patriarch of Palm Springs". Desert Magazine. 12 (9). Palm Desert, CA: Desert Press: 28. Archived from the original on September 10, 2015. Retrieved September 9, 2017.
  26. JSTOR 41169503
    .
  27. OCLC 268792707
    .
  28. OCLC 2818209
    .
  29. OCLC 58931532
    .
  30. ISBN 978-1105051173
    .
  31. National Geographic
    ...
  32. OCLC 61211290. (here for Table of Contents Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
    )
  33. ^ Yerxa, Cabot (December 1951). "Carl Eytel". Palm Springs Villager. 6 (5): 17, 41.
  34. ^
    fishwife's tongue; and the ascetic's
    prerogative, he carped about the horror of declining morals in the village...
  35. ^ The Museum of Riverside has a permanent "desert cabin" exhibit about Jaeger which references Eytel as his mentor. See: Museum of Riverside permanent exhibits Archived December 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  36. Algonquin Roundtable
    . Such a confluence happened in Palm Springs early in the 1900s. But instead of paneled drawing rooms, the artists convened in a couple of oil can shacks beside the Tahquitz ditch, near where the Tennis Club is today.
  37. ^ Kleinschmidt, Janice (August 2007). "The Letters of Carl Eytel: The early desert painter's correspondence with travel writer and teacher Edmund C. Jaeger". Palm Springs Life. Palm Springs: Desert Publications. Archived from the original on April 7, 2012. Retrieved November 28, 2011.
  38. OCLC 3285978
    .
  39. ^ Japenga, Ann (Winter–Spring 2011). "The Smoketree School: Painters respond to the call of the desert". Palm Springs Life. Desert Publications. Archived from the original on April 7, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2011. The Smoketree School encompasses not only traditional landscape, but also modernist and Western works, watercolors, and even abstract painting, as well as contemporary artists, such as Terry Masters, Elaine Mathews, and Diane Best.
  40. ^ Japenga's commentaries are at:
  41. OCLC 6169840. It looks more than likely that by ten or fifteen years from now a school of painters will have made Our Araby their province, just as now there are the Marblehead and Gloucester men in the East and the Newlyn
    men in England. A forerunner of the group I forecast has already been working for many years with Palm Springs for his headquarters, Mr. Carl Eytel, whose knowledge of his field has been earned, as it were, inch by inch and grain by grain, and whose conscientious work gives a truer rendering of the desert than do sensational canvases of the popular Wild West sort. (Electronic copy)
  42. OCLC 755165724
    . The style adopted by almost all of the leading Los Angeles-area artists in the early twentieth century was Impressionism...The proximity of Los Angeles to the Mojave Desert attracted a whole group of scenic painters to investigate this motif...
  43. ollas
    )
  44. OCLC 234084689
    .
  45. LCC F869 P18 C63
  46. OCLC 58931532
    .
  47. OCLC 19266381
    .
  48. ^ See:
  49. ^ Map links:

Further reading

External links
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