John WengerWild Flowers Vibrant Colorful Modernist Oil Painting

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John Wenger (1887-1976) celebrated easel painter and stage set designer whose
career included 25 solo shows in the USA, Canada, … Read more John Wenger (1887-1976) celebrated easel painter and stage set designer whose
career included 25 solo shows in the USA, Canada, and Europe. He created set designs for such plays as "Ile", "Petrushka", "Funny Face", and Rhapsody In Blue". John Wenger's art is included in many museums in and out of the USA.
John Wenger was born on June 16, 1887 in Elizabethgrad, Russia. Wenger was born an artist, and at the age of three was painting (playing) with brushes and paint while his father, a local artist who painted scenery for the traveling theater, worked on drop scenes. His mother disapproved of this and tried to keep her son from playing with these "toys."

When John Wenger was several years older, he attended Gihnazia, which is equivalent to high school but on a college level. Throughout his education Wenger excelled in visual arts. The staff at the Gihnazia school encouraged him to apply to the Imperial Art Academy of Odessa for a scholarship. At the age of thirteen, John Wenger became a student at the academy. For Wenger, this was his first time away from home and he found it to be difficult for several months.

When he came to America in 1903, John earned his living by designing ladies costumes and jewelry at his uncles store in Newark, New Jersey. He then resumed his art studies at Cooper Union and The National Academy of Design.

While in New York, Wenger found an interest in how music and theater connected to art. He rebelled against the heavy sets and hard lines of stage scenery of the time. One day he noticed light upon a mosquito netting on a baby carriage. As the light shifted across the gauze the baby became visible. He took this idea and developed scrim, a gauze-like drop used in theatrical stage design, a device for which Wenger became famous.

His first one man show was at the "Folsom Galleries" on 57th St., NY, in 1916. After this show, Wenger received wonderful reviews. A gentleman walked into the gallery on the last day of the show. This gentleman, Frank Conroy, was known as an actor of great fame at the time and had the ability to get Wenger an important job. He left his card with the director of the gallery to give to John Wenger. Wenger didn't pay any attention to the card until a friend came across it and had him call to make an appointment. Frank Conroy was building the Greenwich Village Theater and would open it with an original play, "Ile." Conroy asked Wenger to design a setting for the play and John Wenger agreed. On the opening night of the play, when the curtains rose, a great applause came from the audience for the magnificent setting. After the performance was over, Eugene ONeill, the writer of the play, embraced Wenger and said, "Young man, the whole world will know about you."

His vast understanding of color and lighting led him to designing stage settings for the Metropolitan Opera Company, the Boston Opera Company, the Greenwich Village Theater, and the Capitol, Rivoli, Rialto, and Roxy Theaters. He also did settings for the Ziefeld Follies, for many of the Metropolitan Opera productions and for numerous ballets and plays. Among his most famous designs were his sets for Gershwins "Funny Face" at the Alvin Theater in 1927 and "Rhapsody in Blue." He also designed the background for the 1929 movie "Paramount on Parade," in which Maurice Chevalier appeared.

His work has been exhibited internationally over the years, with his paintings represented in numerous art collections, both public and private, throughout the world. In the late 1960s the small Trucial State of Sharjah honored Wenger in the company of 6 other great American artists such as Grant Wood, James Whistler, and Frederic Remington, by issuing a postage stamp featuring one of his paintings. Some of his works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of the City of New York, the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian Institute. Other works can be found in Israel at Temple Emeth, Ain Harod Museum, Sholem Asch Museum, Safad Museum, Mishkah Leomanuth Museum, Clicentein Museum, and the Museum of Tel Aviv.

Biography By: Bob Blumenthal See less