{{Short description|American painter}} thumb|right|Self-portrait ({{circa}}1850), Westmoreland Museum of American Art
'''George Hetzel''' (January 17, 1826 – July 4, 1899) was a French-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Scalp Level School of painting,<ref name="Wolf's Fine Art">{{cite web|url=http://www.wolfsfineart.com/biographies2.htm|work=Wolf's Fine Art|title=George Hetzel|access-date=2011-03-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321085442/http://www.wolfsfineart.com/biographies2.htm|archive-date=2012-03-21|url-status=dead}}</ref> a contemporary to the French Barbizon School of Naturalist painting. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
==Life and work== Born in an ethnically mixed part of Alsace, France, on January 17, 1826;<ref name="West Penn Art">{{cite web|url=http://www.westpennart.com/george_hetzel.htm |work=West Penn Art |title=George Hetzel |url-status=usurped |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718032732/http://www.westpennart.com/george_hetzel.htm |archivedate=2011-07-18 }}</ref> Hetzel's family spoke primarily German and emigrated to the United States when he was aged two. They traveled from a Baltimore port to a neighborhood in Allegheny City (Deutschtown), in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hetzel attended Allegheny City school and was apprenticed to a local sign- and house-painter.<ref name="Wolf's Fine Art"/> After four years' training, he earned an artisan's apprenticeship, painting the interior murals of riverboat public rooms and local Pittsburgh saloons. George Hetzel's daughter Lila Hetzel<ref name="Artist">[https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/lila_barr_hetzel_destiny.html Artwork by Lila Barr Hetzel]</ref> also studied art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh School of Design.
George was sent to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1847–49 and studied Da Vinci's Chiaroscuro (the use of light and dark shadows to heighten depth and drama), which<ref name="Wolf's Fine Art"/> became a signature stroke in his later works.
It is thought that Hetzel was first introduced to the bucolic setting of Scalp Level (at the intersection of Paint Creek and Little Paint Creek outside of Johnstown, Pennsylvania) around 1866 during a fishing trip.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gillilandfineart.com/bios.html|work=Gililand Fine Art|title=George Hetzel|access-date=2011-03-13|archive-date=2016-03-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303213131/http://www.gillilandfineart.com/bios.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> He was then an instructor at the Pittsburgh School of Design for Women and encouraged his colleagues and students to make Scalp Level their summer retreat and work "en plein air".
Hetzel exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York City from 1865 to 1882; and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia from 1855 to 1890.<ref name="Falk">Peter Hastings Falk, ed., ''The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Volume 1, 1876-1913'' (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1988).</ref>{{rp|98}}<ref>Peter Hastings Falk, ed., ''The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Volume 2, 1876-1913'' (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989).</ref>{{rp|249-250}} His work was included in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and shown in the first Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 1896.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Realism/George+Hetzel/|work=All Paintings|title=George Hetzel|access-date=2011-03-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150709034600/http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Realism/George+Hetzel/|archive-date=2015-07-09|url-status=usurped}}</ref> He also exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition, 1892-1893.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/ArtistKeywords.aspx?artist=21407|work=Ask Art|title=George Hetzel}}</ref> The J. J. Gillespie Gallery sold his works and he kept an independent studio.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sama-art.org/info/perm_coll/painting/hetzel.htm |work=Sama Art |title=George Hetzel |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727232853/http://www.sama-art.org/info/perm_coll/painting/hetzel.htm |archivedate=2011-07-27 }}</ref> His career was established before the Scalp Level works, but they are currently foremost in his legacy.
==Other Scalp Level artists== Associated Artists include A. F. King, Clarence Johns, E. A. Poole,<ref name="Eugene Alonzo Poole">[https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/eugene_alonzo_poole.html Artwork by Eugene Alonzo Poole]</ref> Charles Linford<ref name="Painter">[https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/charles_linford_art.html Artwork by Charles Linford]</ref> Fred Bussman, A. S. Wall, Joseph R. Woodwell, Bryan Wall, George Lang, C. C. Millor, John Wesley Beatty, Horation Stevenson, John A. Hermann Jr., Jeannette Frances Agnew, Anna W. Henderson, Rachael Henderson, Carrie S. Holmes, Annie Christina, Olive Turney,<ref name="Artistb">[https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/olive_turney_art.html Artwork by Olive Turney]</ref> Bessie Wall, Agnes C. Way,<ref name="West Penn Art"/> and Alfred S. Wall.<ref name="A.S. Wall">[https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/alfred_s_wall_woods.html Artwork by Alfred S. Wall]</ref>
==Work examples == <gallery widths="140px" heights="200px"> Rocky Gorge.jpg|''Rocky Gorge'' (1869), Westmoreland Museum of American Art Appalachian Landscape with Figure Carrying a Syche.jpg|''Appalachian Landscape with Figure Carrying a Syche'' (1875), private collection A Fowl Hanging on a Door.jpg|''A Fowl Hanging on a Door'' (1876), private collection File:Rocky Inlet, Maine.jpg|''Rocky Inlet, Maine'' (1883), Westmoreland Museum of American Art Portrait of Miss Helen Leslie Myers (Mrs. William Allen).jpg|''Portrait of Miss Helen Leslie Myers (Mrs. William Allen)'' (1884-85), Westmoreland Museum of American Art </gallery>
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category}} *[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/38038/rec/39 American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School], an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Hetzel (see index)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hetzel, George}} Category:1826 births Category:1899 deaths Category:19th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:French emigrants to the United States Category:Burials at Homewood Cemetery Category:19th-century American male artists Category:American landscape painters Category:Düsseldorf school of painting