John Englehart
Encyclopedia
His career started in the California Art Boom. From the late 1880s until the turn of the century he maintained a studio in San Francisco on Clay Street. During those prosperous years he commuted to work from a residence across the bay in Oakland
.
, Washington area during that period.
, Oregon and spent a large part of his time there until 1904. He participated in the Lewis and Clark Expo (1905)
when he was 38 years old.
More popular contemporary frontier artists of the time painted the Great Pacific Northwest Frontier in such grandiose and theatrically extravagant terms that the locations of their greatest works are imaginary like Albert Bierstadt
or Church
. Or with beautiful romantic artistic distortions of Thomas Hill
's Stunning paintings. "Not as it is, but as it ought to be" was Hill's goal of his paintings, he liked to give.
. America had just aggressively taken a large section of Mexico in a popular action that Abraham Lincoln
strenuously opposed as an illegal action(cite needed) (this opposition lost him the next election). The Civil War
had just finished. And in 1867 near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains
Indian leaders. This Medicine Lodge Treaty
treaty required Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma
. 1867 was also the year America purchased Alaska
. He grew up with the American mood of "Go West young man!"
During his time the American artist helped mold the American west by instilling and fanning the eastern population's desire to create something entirely new, the protection of huge swaths of land as park land for use and enjoyment by the common people. This frontier was only seen through the eyes of an artist by the average easterner. And the few easterners that had seen it, took back paintings of its breathtaking beauties to evangelize their family and friends on the beauties of the unspoiled west.
Populist art of Yosemite helped create and save Yosemite from many attempts at development. But John Muir
, his powerful friends, and his artist friends were not able to save Hetch Hetchy Valley, which Muir felt was more stunning than Yosemite. Englehart visited and color sketched the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, soon to be dammed to create a reservoir to provide water and power for San Francisco. The above 1908 painting's Hetch Hetchy Valley location is probably under water now. They say Muir died of a broken heart because they lost the battle to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
College of Notre Dame (Belmont, CA);
Society of California Pioneers (signed C.N. Doughty, on loan from the De Young Museum);
Nevada Museum (Reno);
Oakland Museum.
And a large collection of His paintings can be seen at the Historic Baldwin Saloon at The Dalles, Oregon.
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
.
Tacoma
In the late 1890s he traveled and painted the Northwest, he did many landscapes of the TacomaTacoma, Washington
Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...
, Washington area during that period.
Portland
In 1902 after San Francisco's main purchasing taste changed temporally to European art, he opened a studio in PortlandPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Oregon and spent a large part of his time there until 1904. He participated in the Lewis and Clark Expo (1905)
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition
The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, commonly also known as the Lewis and Clark Exposition, and officially known as the Lewis and Clark Centennial American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, was a worldwide exposition held in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1905 to celebrate the...
when he was 38 years old.
San Francisco
In 1909, at the age of 42 years old, He was awarded a prize for his landscapes painting in a New York show. By 1910 Englehart was again a resident of Alameda, California where he resided until his death in Alameda/Oakland on April 14, 1915.Realism
Englehart's style was Realism, focused more on being illustrative and descriptive, rather than theatrical or romanticized. Just like an illustration in a medical textbook, Englehart's paintings can describe more than can be seen from many viewpoints. Bringing several views into one harmonious composition, yet simplifies to the essentials, and adjusting the main points to highlight them, all the while building beautiful enjoyable art that still has great flow, contrast, structure, tone and color. With simplicity of style, trying to bring the viewer closest to the actual experience of being there.More popular contemporary frontier artists of the time painted the Great Pacific Northwest Frontier in such grandiose and theatrically extravagant terms that the locations of their greatest works are imaginary like Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
or Church
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters...
. Or with beautiful romantic artistic distortions of Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill (painter)
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire.-Biography:...
's Stunning paintings. "Not as it is, but as it ought to be" was Hill's goal of his paintings, he liked to give.
Contemporary events
Englehart was born at the height of Americas populist belief in Manifest DestinyManifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
. America had just aggressively taken a large section of Mexico in a popular action that Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
strenuously opposed as an illegal action(cite needed) (this opposition lost him the next election). The Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
had just finished. And in 1867 near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
Indian leaders. This Medicine Lodge Treaty
Medicine Lodge Treaty
The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed between the United States government and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American...
treaty required Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. 1867 was also the year America purchased Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. He grew up with the American mood of "Go West young man!"
During his time the American artist helped mold the American west by instilling and fanning the eastern population's desire to create something entirely new, the protection of huge swaths of land as park land for use and enjoyment by the common people. This frontier was only seen through the eyes of an artist by the average easterner. And the few easterners that had seen it, took back paintings of its breathtaking beauties to evangelize their family and friends on the beauties of the unspoiled west.
Populist art of Yosemite helped create and save Yosemite from many attempts at development. But John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
, his powerful friends, and his artist friends were not able to save Hetch Hetchy Valley, which Muir felt was more stunning than Yosemite. Englehart visited and color sketched the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, soon to be dammed to create a reservoir to provide water and power for San Francisco. The above 1908 painting's Hetch Hetchy Valley location is probably under water now. They say Muir died of a broken heart because they lost the battle to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
Selected works
| Picture | Subject | Englehart's Signator | Inches inc. org. frame | Price | Auction House |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yosemite | J. Englehart | 64x44 |
$19,120 |
2004 Christies | |
| Yosemite | Ed Shroder | 53x31 |
$10,158 |
2006 Bonhams | |
| Yosemite | J.J. Englehart | 50x30 |
$7,832 |
2009 JMoran | |
| Mining | J.J. Englehardt | ?x? | $7,500 |
2001 O'Gallerie | |
| Yosemite | J.J. Englehart | 46x32 |
$5,581 |
2005 Bonhams | |
| lake | J. Englehardt | 50x30 |
$3,250 |
2007 O'Gallerie | |
| Mythical Valley | J.J. Englehart | 50x30 |
$3,000 |
2001 O'Gallerie | |
| Mt. Hood | Englehart | 50x30 |
$2,750 |
2007 O'Gallerie | |
| Mt. Hood | J. Englehart | 48x30 |
$2,500 |
2002 O'Gallerie | |
| lake | WM. J. Schon | 52x30 |
$2,040 |
2008 Bonhams | |
| Crater Lake | J. Englehart | 36x26 |
$2,000 |
2000 O'Gallerie | |
| Yosemite | WM Hart | 36x18 |
$1,952 |
2009 Bonhams | |
| Mt. Hood | J. Englehart | 36x22 |
$1,900 |
2002 O'Gallerie | |
| Mt. Hood | C.N. Doughty | 34x18 |
$900 |
2003 O'Gallerie | |
| Picture | Subject | Signature | Size | $Price | Auction House |
| Joseph John Englehart's Paintings Sold at Auction | |||||
Museums
Washington State Historical SocietyCollege of Notre Dame (Belmont, CA);
Society of California Pioneers (signed C.N. Doughty, on loan from the De Young Museum);
Nevada Museum (Reno);
Oakland Museum.
And a large collection of His paintings can be seen at the Historic Baldwin Saloon at The Dalles, Oregon.
| Picture | Subject | Englehart's Signator | Inches inc. org. frame | Museum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Add here | Add here | Signature | Size | Museum |
| Picture | Subject | Signature | Size | Museum |
| Joseph John Englehart's Paintings In Museum | ||||
Unrelated artists
Because Englehart used so many pseudonyms. Below is a list of Real People who have been shown not to have been Englehart:- Josef Engelhart: European Oil painter, completely different style, and subjects.
- Charles Montagu DoughtyCharles Montagu DoughtyCharles Montagu Doughty was an English poet, writer, and traveller born in Theberton Hall, Saxmundham, Suffolk and educated at private schools in Laleham and Elstree, and at a school for the royal navy, Portsmouth...
: Poet who traveled in Arabia between 1876 and 1878. - Edna Palmer Engelhardt: Oil painter, completely different style, and subjects.
- Walter Albert Engelhardt: Oil painter, completely different style, and subjects.
- LeRoy Updyke (1876–1959): Copied Englehart. Painting teacher who taught some classes at the University Of Washington and painted for the tourist trade. Much different style, but very much like Englehart's color sketches.