An American Master Painter
Berthelsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on July 25, 1883 and at the age of six he immigrated to America with his parents. By 1901 he had a full scholarship to study voice at the Chicago Music College, from which he graduated in 1905. As a trained baritone, he toured the United States and Canada for approximately five years, playing various operatic characters. In 1910 he joined the faculty of the Chicago Music College, and taught voice there for three years.
Although it was not until 1932 that Berthelsen decided to devote himself fully to art, he had been painting for twenty-two years. In 1910 Berthelsen was encouraged to take up painting by a fellow Scandinavian, the Norwegian painter Svend Svendsen (1864-1934). Svendsen specialized in high quality paintings of nearly photographic snow-covered woods scenes, which were smoothly executed using a minimum of paint. He would invariably use low angle sunlight or such a device as radiance from a cabin at dusk to illuminate the snow.
Berthelsen moved to Indianapolis in 1913 to become head of the voice department at Indianapolis Conservatory of Music. By 1915 he left this position to open his own studio, and continued to teach voice. He was also active in theatrical productions with the Little Theater Society. He served as the director of the Society and is reported to have appeared in many lead roles.
While in Indianapolis, Berthelsen started painting with Wayman Adams (1883-1959), who became Berthelsen’s instructor and inspiration. Wayman Adams was an Indiana born portrait painter who became a member of the National Academy of Design in New York City. He painted portraits of many of the artists of his day, including at least three of Berthelsen, as well as of the governors and other luminaries. His Whistlerian effect of many of his portraits, which may reflect his interest in this American master and anticipate (as well as influence) Berthelsen’s later pastel nocturnes.
Throughout this period Berthelsen was refining his techniques, though he was not yet confident enough to attempt living by his painting alone. Adams’ comments on Berthelsen’s later art suggested that he had long held it in high regard.
“It is always a pleasure to see a picture that is not merely technical, but contains the same interest and feeling of an artist for his subject. The intangibly felt nocturnes of Central Park, the romantic streets of New York on a snowy day, or an early spring morning by Mr. Johann Berthelsen, give me great delight. Over many years I have watched the consistent poetic quality of his work and rejoice in his mounting success.”
These two men were such close friends that they married their brides in a double ceremony on October 1, 1918, at Saint Paul’s Trinity Church in New York City. No doubt it was his friendship with Adams as well as his ambition that encouraged the developing artist to move to New York City.
He arrived there in 1920, and opened a studio where he taught voice and where he could paint. He was considered to be a capable voice teacher and several of his pupils became successful entertainers. During the 1920’s both Berthelsen and Adams had studios at 200 West 57th Street, Rodin Studios.
The artistic encouragement that Berthelsen received from Svendsen and later from Adams was important and gradually redirected his career from voice teacher to artist. By 1932, at the age of forty-nine, he decided to devote himself to painting full time. The only exception to this decision occurred between 1940 and 1942. During these World War II years he became a member of the Lecture Bureau of the Columbia Broadcasting System. This was, perhaps, his contribution to the war effort and a logical extension of his earlier training and experience with opera and the theater.
Berthelsen became involved in the New Deal art projects of the mid-1930. He exhibited at the temporary galleries of the Municipal Art Committee at New York City in 1936. He and eleven other conservative painters (including Gordon Grant and Charles P. Gruppe) occupied the third floor of the five story building housing the Municipal Art Committee at 62 West 53rd Street. It is interesting to note that five of these twelve artists later become members or associates of the National Academy of Design.
The exhibition was based upon the MacDowell Plan, wherein a resident artist of New York could show if a specified number of peers agreed to exhibit with him. Berthelsen’s acceptance by this group, no doubt, as encouraging as was the special opportunity to exhibit and sell his paintings.
Few of Berthelsen’s early paintings have been located. Scarcer than the early paintings, no pastels or watercolors of Berthelsen’s Indiana period have been located. He did, however, work in both media in New York during the 1920’s. He drew sensitive pastel cityscape nocturnes in the manner of Whistler as well as other compositions of the city. His first official recognition was for a pastel of Central Park, entered in the Hoosier Salon Exhibition in Chicago (1928), which won the Albert Erskine Prize for Pastel.
His work in watercolor gained him membership in the American Watercolor Society in 1926. His watercolor pictures have been described as having a soft, pastel-like quality with a gentle blurring of edges in the handling of form. During this period he continued to paint in oils. His paintings start to show his movement toward Impressionism; here is when he starts using daubs of color to define objects which take form only when the painting is viewed from a distance.
Berthelsen was a dedicated and prolific artist. He could usually be seen through the window of his 57th Street studio, painting from early morning until late in the evening. New York City snow scenes became his favorite subject to paint and draw, although he did produce genre and still life pictures.
The painting of cityscapes of metropolitan New York is not unique to Berthelsen. When he moved to New York City such notables as Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Guy C. Wiggins (1883-1962), and Earnest Lawson (1873-1939) were already producing them, as did Indiana-born Glen Cooper Henshaw (1884-1946). Many were snow scenes and some include flags as focal points- - a device used then but rarely seen today.
Guy Wiggins was the major painter of New York cityscapes of the era, and it is tempting at first to believe that Berthelsen was merely a follower of his neighbor at 226 West 59th Street. They were the same age and each depicted the contemporary city under a blanket of snow. Both artists used flags and the yellow taxi as subject matter, and each was a member of the Salmagundi Club.
Analysis of their work however, shows Wiggins’ paintings to be more solidly painted, generally more colorful, and less convincingly atmospheric. Berthelsen frequently painted similar scenes, as noted, five artists were attracted by the subject matter, but there are subtle differences. In the scope of the view, in the handling of the atmosphere, and in the traffic patterns of the vehicles and pedestrians, Berthelsen had a mastery which separated him from his contemporaries.
His pictures were sometimes painted thinly, with little paint, and at other times with impasto, a heavy build-up of paint, depending upon the effect he wanted to achieve. For the substrate he used paper, canvas, canvas board, paper board, pressed wood-fiber board, or other materials that fit the needs of his subject. His works are usually signed but rarely dated, which makes the study of his artistic development difficult.
Berthelsen’s special painting style seems to be more of an integration of Svendsens’ early influence and later that of Adams, with a particular appreciation of French Impressionism. His fascination with snow scenes continued throughout his career, a tribute to Svendsen, his Chicago teacher. As with most artists, his quality was variable. The paintings of his middle period seem superior to those of his later period, although each possesses its own unique beauty.
Johann Berthelsen is a late American Impressionist painter. While he did not study art in France, he had ample opportunity to view French Impressionism on exhibit in New York City, Chicago and elsewhere. His New York paintings consistently approach those of the French Impressionists more closely than of his fellow Americans who studied in France. The American Impressionists borrowed liberally from the French movement when producing landscapes. Few, however, produced impressionistically painted figures. Berthelsen is an exception, since he places such figures within his freely painted cityscapes. In this sense he is close to the early work of the ‘father’ of French Impressionism, Claude Monet (1840-1926). Also handling of atmospheric effects of the same scene depicted at different times was also a trademark of both artists. Both artists used flags or other color additions to highlight their cityscapes. It seems logical to believe that Monet, not Wiggins, directly or indirectly, was Berthelsen’s most important artistic influence.
Berthelsen was a member of several artistic organizations and he exhibited extensively, winning numerous awards. He showed frequently in New York City, Indianapolis and Chicago, for which he no doubt had an affinity after studying and working there for many years. He also produced cityscapes of Chicago in his later years, which was also a natural consequence of this association.
Berthelsen’s paintings are included in various private and public collections, and have received numerous complimentary reviews by art critics. Prestigious publications such as the New York Times, New York Herald-Tribune, the Chicago Evening Post, The Christian Monitor and others praised his work in glowing terms.
For most of his painting career, Johann Berthelsen painted the contemporary life and the energy of the metropolis which surrounded him. Besides their beauty and their power, they are illustrative of time-specific scenes, cityscapes, dress and vehicles of a bygone era, and are historic documents.
Berthelsen’s special appeal today involves two additional factors. His paintings are attractive, understandable and easy to live with. There is also a growing awareness and appreciation of American Impressionism and its increasing intrinsic value.
Johann Berthelsen, the painter who has the distinction of being an American Impressionist in the manner of Monet, is reported to have died in Wisconsin in 1972. His ability to portray so convincingly his impressions of scenes as both subjects of beauty and vibrant, atmospherically charged records of the metropolis, ranks him as an American Master Painter.
Memberships:
Allied Artists of America
American Watercolor Society, 1926
Hoosier Salon, 1928
Salmagundi Club, 1936
Exhibited:
Hoosier Salon, Chicago, IL
Thurbers Gallery, Chicago, IL
Hoosier Salon, Indianapolis, IN
American Watercolor Society, New York, NY
Barbizon Plaza Galleries, New York, NY
Galleries of the Municipal Art Committee, New York, NY
Gatterdam Gallery, New York, NY
Jean Bohne gallery, New York, NY
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
(Roads Less Traveled: American Paintings, 1883-1935)
Public Collections:
Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory, NC
Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis, IN
Indiana University, The Dailey Family Memorial Collection of Paintings, Bloomington, IN
Kappa Kappa Kappa Art Collection, Indianapolis, IN
(long term loan to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN)
Sembrich Memorial, Lake George, NY
Sheldon Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, IN
The Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC
Credits: Leland G. Howard, Sheldon Swope Art Museum, 1988
Edited: Lawrence J. Cantor, Lawrence J. Cantor & Company
| 
