Existing comment:
George Hetzel, Fisherman on the Conemaugh, 1887
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club commissioned George Hetzel to produce this painting, also known as Rocky Valley and Scenes on the Connoquenessing in 1887. Wealthy industrialists from Pittsburgh including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Mellon were members of this exclusive club that sat fourteen miles above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The painting was commissioned to hang in the clubhouse, the gathering point for members and their families.
Hetzel was the founder of the Scalp Level School, a loose affiliation of Pittsburgh based artists who specialized in landscape paintings. Club member Joseph Woodwell, a son of a prominent Pittsburgh businessman, was also part of this group of artists. Like Hetzel, he was commissioned to produce a painting for the clubhouse.
Drawn to the natural beauty of the area, Hetzel spent summers in [the] later part of the 19th century painting the creeks and valleys around Johnstown. Like Hetzel, the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club had an appreciation of nature and enjoyed its solitude as an escape from city life in Pittsburgh.
The painting was delivered to the club, by Hetzel personally, in July of 1887 and hung in the parlor for almost two years until May 31, 1889, when the South Fork Dam broke causing the Great Johnstown Flood. After the flood, the club abandoned the clubhouse, cottages and grounds. On February 25, 1904, at an auction of clubhouse contents, Fisherman on the Conemaugh was purchased by Johnstown native George M. Wertz. Wertz served as sheriff of Cambria County and was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate and the US House of Representatives. Roger Hager, retired attorney and grandson of Wertz, donated Fisherman on the Conemaugh to the Johnstown Flood National Memorial in 2010. |