Blog posted August 2009
In the summertime.....
Oil painting by Fred Wagner (1860-1940)
Since sometime in the mid-nineties, my sister Susan and I have been researching the life of our great, great Uncle, Fred Wagner. He was an accomplished and prolific painter of Philadelphia and its surroundings. We feel he is deserving of a book and who else is going to write it but us? So, we are going to have a book made and publish it through xLibris. That is what my summer project is this year – to finish this book and get it out.
The painting above is of my Grandmother and four of her five daughters; my mother is sitting in front of her. The artist included himself in the far right sitting with a hat and business suit on. It is in Ocean City, New Jersey.
Fred Wagner painted many of Philadelphia's landmarks such as Logan Circle, Independence Hall, the rivers, train stations and bridges. He also painted many shore scenes at Ocean City, New Jersey and further north up the coast in Island Heights. (photo below of Island Heights, NJ taken by yours truly).
Wagner willed all of his oil paintings to my grandmother, his niece, Marguerite Brendlinger. She then gave them to her five daughters, one of whom is our mother, Rosalie Brendlinger Smith. The book will feature photographs of all of the paintings we have in our family between my mother, and her four sisters. We also traveled to wherever else we found his work and took pictures of the paintings there, such as the Finger Lakes, NY, Arizona and other local towns like Chestnut Hill.
We have found some important documents over the years that will be included in the book along with a chapter written by our cousin Walter Robinson, editor of the world’s largest online art magazine, artnet.com. He is a published author of the book “Instant Art History” as well. Walter will write the chapter describing Wagner’s style of painting.
If you are reading this now and you know of anyone who owns one of Fred Wagner’s paintings, please email me to let me know and we will include the painting in the book. cyndydrue (at) yahoo.com.
There is a flash piece of some of his paintings on my website in the photography section.
Vacation - June 2009
My family, the matriarchs of which are in the painting above by Fred Wagner, spend a couple of weeks in Ocean City, New Jersey every summer. This year three families rented houses and there were a few spillovers’ that stayed at a B&B. All in all, there were 50 relatives that made their way to the gardens section where we stayed. Some came from as far away as Alaska, Minnesota and Arizona to relax in the fine town of OC. Cocktails on the roof every night!
Ocean City is still pretty much the same as it was when we went there as kids. My grandmother had a big house with about 10 bedrooms so all of us cousins hung out together every summer there. Two of my older cousins, Walter and Stuart went to Woodstock in August of 1969. I remember them coming into the kitchen of our grandmother’s home to tell everyone about the festival. I wasn’t that interested in hearing about it and went downstairs to read my Archie comic books instead. Little did I know that ten years later, on the tenth anniversary of Woodstock, I’d be a rock DJ on WYSP and I’d have those two cousins on the air with me talking to listeners about Woodstock!
So, happy 40th anniversary to the event that took Max Yasgur’s farm by storm: The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. We celebrated this year at the shore by watching the remastered digital version of the film. I forgot how amazing Jimi Hendrix was. I was too young to ever see him live but that film really captures his performance well.
All photos copyright 2008-09 Cyndy Drue