Stow Wengenroth

(1906-1978)

I recall having a “heated debate” (polite for saying I called the other person wrong) with a staff member of Kennedy Gallery around 1975 about Stow Wengenroth who was represented by Kennedy at the time. Wengenroth, was arguably the best lithographer in America during his productive years and an artist whom Andrew Wyeth called “the greatest black-and-white artist in America.”1 I had asked whether the gallery had any of his coveted watercolor still lifes and was smugly corrected that Mr. Wengenroth had been creating black-and-white dry brush drawings as preparation for his lithographs since 1929, that all his works were documented, and that he did not work in watercolor. “That’s a shame, because I own two of them,” I responded and left, a bit puzzled as to how his own gallery knew nothing of these exquisitely painted floral still lifes with fabric backdrops and often a butterfly, a symbol of resurrection. As I learned, during the last three years of Wengenroth’s life, his friends in Rockport encouraged him to work in color—something he had not done since his student days in the 1920s. These images were pure and clean; collectors and artists alike lined up for the chance to buy the next one, with virtually none escaping Cape Ann. I’ve heard it estimated that he may have completed 150 to 200 watercolors; I can’t be certain but they were all snapped up immediately… of that I am certain. I guess that explains why Kennedy Gallery “had no clue.”