William Wendt (1865-1946) Far from the Madding Crowd signed and dated 'WILLIAM WENDT -1930-' (lower right) and titled (on the stretcher bar) oil on canvas 28 x 36in framed 36 3/4 x 44 1/2in Painted in 1930. Footnotes: Provenance The artist. Stendahl Art Galleries, Los Angeles, California. Sale, Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco and Los Angeles, California and American Paintings & Sculpture, August 3, 2009, lot 100. Private collection, Southern California. Exhibited Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, Exhibition of Paintings by William Wendt, A.N.A., 1931, no. 24. Literature J.A. Walker, Documents on the Life and Art of William Wendt (1865-1946), California's Painter Laureate of the Paysage Moralisé, Big Pine, California, 1992, pp. 103, 145, no. 198. W. South, J. Stern, J. Blake, In Nature's Temple, The Life and Art of William Wendt, Irvine, The Irvine Museum, 2008, pp. 283, 299, illustrated.