Wendt oil painting comes home

The museum that William Wendt helped to create has taken in another of his works. Last week, the Laguna Art Museum announced it has added an untitled 1933 oil painting by Wendt to its collection.

Montebello residents Robert and Shirley Foster, who received the painting from the estate of their friend Janet W. Wood, donated it to the museum because of Wendt’s strong connection to Laguna Beach. The artist, who came to the United States from Germany in 1880, co-founded the Laguna Beach Art Assn. in 1918. The association later blossomed into the Laguna Art Museum.

“Before she [Wood] died, she mentioned she thought the painting might have some value, and she’d like to see it go to a place that would appreciate it,” Shirley Foster said.

Spokeswoman Marni Farmer said the new addition is the fourth Wendt painting in the museum’s collection. Officials plan to display the work, which is slated to be cleaned at the Balboa Art Conservation Center, at an indefinite time in the future.

The painting features a landscape that Janet Blake, the museum’s curator of early California art, believes Wendt captured in either El Toro or Trabuco Canyon.

—Michael Miller