William Frederic Ritschel 1864 - 1949

	Boats in the Surf Mixed Media, 6 3/4 x 9 $7,000

The art works of William Frederic Ritschel are held by at least 16 museums including the Oakland Museum of California, with an extensive collection at the Monterey Art Museum. He is discussed in over 50 reference books. William Frederic Ritschel was a California Impressionist painter who was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1864. He studied art at the Royal Academy in Munich before emigrating to New York City in 1895. Much of his young life was spent at sea, and it is not surprising that as an artist his focus was on capturing the sea with its many personalities. Ritschel settled in Carmel in 1911, becoming one of the first artists to establish residence there subsequent to the devastating earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, and that is where he died in 1949. On the rocky cliffs of Carmel Heights he built a home called "Castellammare", named for an Italian seaport town south of Naples.

He was a member of the NY WC Club; American WC Society; Carmel AA; Bohemian Club; Société Internationale des Beaux Arts et des Lettres (Paris); Academy of Western Painters (LA); Allied AA; and NAC. He was exhibited in many prestigious venues.

His watercolors tended to be rendered in mixed media, including gouache and even pastel pigment touches. In addition to the Monterey-Carmel Coast, his works often focused on a fishing village on the Holland coast named Katwyck.

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