Thaddeus Welch, California landscape painter

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2003 by Alfred C. Jr. Harrison

In the late 1890s, Welch's landscapes started showing subtle signs of French impressionist influence. Works like Morning, Steep Ravine (Pl. VII) exhibit the light green palette and lavender shadows popularized by Claude Monet (1840-1926). On the other hand, Welch never adopted the broken brushstrokes of the impressionist movement. Another landscape that shows the palette of French impressionism combined with Barbizon compositional devices is The Road to Bolinas (Pl. VIII). In the foreground is a horse-drawn wagon, which would have been the Welches' main means of meeting other human beings. Their everyday companions were pet dogs, whom they dearly loved and painted with great tenderness.

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The Welches continued to live in the wilderness of Marin County even after increased sales of his paintings in San Francisco provided the wherewithal to move back into a more civilized environment. From various sources it is clear that Thaddeus Welch was not easy to get along with. In a letter to his sister-in-law Anna Pilat he apologized for the blunt words he had written in a previous letter and added: "I find it difficult to say that everything is lovely, when it isn't. I believe in telling the truth, if the heavens fall." (13) Anna Cora Winchell, the art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, reminisced in an article published nine days after Welch's death that those who were closest to him ... were not able to deny the cynical strain which tinged most of Welch's remarks, attitude and mode of living. He was companionable to the few who came within his favor but never hesitated to speak his mind, however unpleasant the impression left. (14)

After the turn of the century, San Francisco newspaper critics were quick to praise Welch's paintings when they were exhibited in commercial galleries or in the annual Bohemian Club show. His most popular paintings were poetic transcriptions of Marin County scenery, but he occasionally attempted other subjects, often with significant success. A small canvas from 1900, The Farallon Islands (Pl. X), depicts the rocky outcroppings inhabited by seagulls and seals thirty miles west of San Francisco in the Pacific Ocean--a subject quite different from the pastoral hills of Marin. Welch has created a harmonious composition out of this jagged subject by placing a fogbank in the left quarter of the canvas that repeats the shape of the middle island.

In 1901 the Welches spent a season camping in Yosemite Valley. Several outstanding views resulted from this excursion, including Half Dome, Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley (Pl. XI). In this work, the Merced River pulls the eye into the picture and reflects the silver tones of the cliffs in the fresh light of early morning.

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But Marin County scenes predominate in Welch's work. Foggy Day, Mount Tamalpais (Pl. XII) shows the influence of a popular turn-of-the-century approach to landscape now known as tonalism. California fog provides a unifying tonalist palette, especially in the dry season when the hills are dun colored.