| Born in Brookville, Indiana on January 7, 1889, Bessie Wessel moved to
Cincinnati as a youngster. She received encouragement to pursue a career in art
from her father, a school teacher. In 1906, she enrolled in the Cincinnati Art
Academy, first studying with Lewis Henry Meakin and then Herman Wessel. Frank
Duveneck invited her to join his classes, which she attended from 1909 to 1915.
She became a frequent exhibitor of her portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and
miniatures which she painted on ivory.1
From 1917 to 1919, she was President of the Women's Art Club. In 1915, she
joined the faculty of the Art Academy, but worked so hard she tired and resigned
two years later. However, while teaching she got to know her colleague and
future husband Herman Wessel. The two were married in August of 1917 at the home
of Frank Duveneck (their favorite teacher and friend) two years later, Duveneck
died, which caused the couple great mutual sorrow. After his death, Bessie and
her husband became the acknowledged experts on authenticating Duveneck
paintings.
Together Bessie and Herman became leading figures in the art world of
Cincinnati. They shared a studio near their home in Eden Park, where they spent
the rest of their lives and often exhibited together. They spent most of their
summers away from home traveling in Europe and throughout the United States.
While raising their son, she was less active as a painter for a period than he
was, but she continued to exhibit, and when their son was grown, returned to a
full painting career. She was particularly acclaimed for her child portraiture
well through the 1960s, eventually painting over two hundred portraits. Bessie
also created brightly colored still lifes arranged with items collected on her
travels mixed with fruit, flowers or vegetables and landscapes.
Mrs. Wessel has painted many portraits now
hanging in public buildings and homes throughout the country, as well as
landscapes, flower studies and still life portraits. The latter are from
summers spent on Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Her portraits include Colonel Matt
Winn in the Hall of Fame of Racing, Saratoga Springs, New York; Vachel
Anderson in the Anderson House, Washington, D.C.; E. T. Hurley in the National
Academy Gallery of American Painters, New York City; Mrs. Lowell Hobart in the
American Legion Auxiliary National Headquarters, Indianapolis, Indiana; and in
Cincinnati, James N. Gamble and Judge Alfred Nippert in the Christ Hospital
Research Building; President William Howard Taft in Woodward High School;
Colonel Thomas H. Morrow in the Thomas H. Morrow Army Reserve Training Center.
After her husband's death in 1969, she focused on a project of painting Indian
portraits called "Portraits from the Plains," a series that sold out
within the week of first being exhibited. Shortly after the exhibit, her health
began to weaken and she died on January 29, 1973. |
