Vintage American Oil on Board Pennsylvania Landscape | "Clay Road" Signed L.J. Wenner 1942

A small Pennsylvania landscape from November 1942 — Clay Road, Near Easton, Pennsylvania, signed and dated lower right by L.J. Wenner, an Allentown, Pennsylvania painter who was serving with the U.S. Army Medical Detachment at Fort Myer, Virginia, when he made this picture.

The composition is the autumnal Lehigh Valley at its most painterly: a country road curving up between dark cedars on the left, a small white-painted Pennsylvania farmhouse half-glimpsed behind the tree line, a single ochre-leaved deciduous tree holding the center of the canvas like a struck match against the deep evergreen mass behind it, the distant blue ridge of the Pennsylvania highlands beyond. Painterly impasto throughout — the foreground road built up in confident knife-strokes, the central tree's golden foliage worked into dimensional thickness against the sky. Pennsylvania regional landscape painting in its working tradition.

The Verso Label

A typed period paper label is affixed to the back of the board:

"#12 / Media: Oil / Title: 'Clay Road' / Where: Near Easton, Penna. / When: November, 1942 / Size: 12" × 16" / Who: L.J. Wenner, 1017½ Tilghman Street, Allentown, Penna. / Hq. & Hq. Co. (Med. Det.), 2525 Service Unit, South Post, Fort Myer, Virginia"

The label tells us that Wenner kept a personal numbered inventory of his works — this was his piece #12 — and that he was actively painting his hometown Lehigh Valley landscape during his wartime service. The line marked "Where Exhibited" is left blank.

The Pennsylvania Regional Landscape Tradition

The painting belongs to the broader Pennsylvania regional landscape tradition that flourished in the Lehigh Valley through the 1940s and 1950s — an Allentown extension of Pennsylvania Impressionism centered on the Baum Circle around Walter Emerson Baum, founder of the Baum School of Art and the Allentown Art Museum. Wenner is not a documented Baum Circle member, but his work belongs to the same regional landscape tradition that defined the artistic life of his immediate neighborhood.

The Frame

The frame is original to the work — gilt-finished with distressed corner ornaments, the gilding worn down to red bole and wood beneath at the high points in the warm decorator-prized way that period gilt frames acquire only with time.

Condition

Painting sound on board with painterly impasto intact. Signature legible. Verso label intact and fully legible. Frame original to the work with honest period wear to the gilding.

Details

Artist: L.J. Wenner (American, Allentown, Pennsylvania, active 1940s) Title: "Clay Road" Subject: Pennsylvania landscape, near Easton, Pennsylvania Date: November 1942 Medium: Oil on board Signature: Signed and dated lower right "L.J. Wenner '42" Verso: Detailed period typed paper label with title, date, location, dimensions, artist's address (1017½ Tilghman Street, Allentown, PA) and military unit (Hq. & Hq. Co. Med. Det., 2525 Service Unit, South Post, Fort Myer, VA) Board: 12 × 16 in. Framed: 14 × 17½ in. Frame: Original gilt-finished period frame with distressed corner ornaments

Valley House Antiques · Chester Springs, Pennsylvania