The Butterfly Catchers

When he was young, Theodore Wendel joined the circus and became an acrobat. Later, he decided to pursue a more traditional profession and became an artist. He studied in the United States and in Europe and learned from the French Impressionist master Claude Monet. Wendel was one of the first American artists to adopt the Impressionists’ style of loose, obvious brushstrokes and bright colors and also their penchant for painting outdoors (en plein air). Painted at the family’s farm in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Butterfly Catchers features Wendel’s children in the foreground.