| Charles S. Kaelin | ||
| Birth Date: December 19, 1858 |
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| Death Date: March 28, 1929 Artist Gallery |
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| Charles Kaelin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of a Swiss lithographer. His first career choice was to follow in his father’s footsteps in engraving, but gradually, he became interested in pastel and attended the Art Student League of New York. He traveled back and forth from New York and Ohio and in these years, he took many sketching trips throughout southern Ohio and Kentucky. He worked exclusively in pastels, a medium in which he excelled and portrayed the countryside in a delicate, poetic manner, reminiscent of his years with John Henry Twachtman as his teacher.
After a time, he joined the exodus of painters to the Cape Ann artists’ colony in Massachusetts. The local people in Cape Ann have stories about him traveling on his bike, loaded with brushes, paints and supplies to the woods to paint. He painted the creek outside his window, the accompanying woods and the boats and wharves along a nearby harbor. Nature moved Kaelin deeply; his response was genuine and truthful in color. He was satisfied painting the same view over and over again with only slight variations.
Kaelin lived alone in Rockport in a hermit-painters shanty from 1916 until his death in 1929. He spent his time rendering the sun dappled harbor and the nearby woodland forest, working in both pastel and oil. “Spring Freshet” was painted in 1920 and was donated by Mr. Charles B. Kaelin of Canton, nephew of the artist.
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