Carl Wuttke (German/Polish, 1849–1927)
View of The Wasatch Mountains, Looking East From The Great Salt Lake, c. 1893
Oil on canvas
8 × 11 in.
Painted during Carl Wuttke’s visit to Utah in 1893, this rare early landscape reflects the artist’s practice of recording places encountered during his travels. The broad, open composition and subdued palette emphasize atmosphere and distance, suggesting a work made directly from observation. Rather than describing specific landmarks, Wuttke focuses on light, space, and stillness, using landscape as a vehicle for experience rather than documentation.
Wuttke received academic training in Berlin, Munich, and Düsseldorf before embarking on decades of travel throughout Italy, North Africa, Scandinavia, the United States, and Asia. His journeys culminated in a world tour that inspired works commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II for the Berliner Stadtschloss. Though often characterized as Pre-Impressionist, Wuttke remained independent of Secessionist movements, developing a personal approach that balanced academic structure with immediacy and transience.
