Ahrens article excerpt

On a cool autumn Saturday in October , 1911, over 4,000 people crowded into the Toronto Reference
Library for an exhibit by landscape painter Carl Ahrens (1862-1936). A Dutch art dealer offered to buy
the collection of 31 paintings for $100,000 but the owner, General Malcolm S. Mercer, refused. The
Belgian Art Commissioner offered to host the collection in Belgium, the first such offer made to a
North American artist. A leading art critic from Europe called Ahrens "The best tree painter who ever
lived."

Never heard of Carl Ahrens? You're not alone.

Until recently, those who did recognize the name heard it only in conjunction with his close friend
and contemporary, Homer Watson. The few who were familiar with Ahrens' work, mainly curators and
art dealers, had seen only a handful of paintings and etchings. From these few examples, Ahrens,
initially famous as a portrait painter and internationally acclaimed as a colorist, was usually dismissed
as "that dark tree painter."

This label, while inaccurate, is understandable. Even during Ahrens' lifetime the public rarely saw his
work. His association with the art circles in Toronto was short lived due to illness, scandal, and his
knack for saying the wrong things to the wrong people. He worked mainly on comission, his paintings
going directly into private collections. Even now, generations later, his best works remain in private
hands. The few public galleries that do own paintings or prints by Ahrens generally received them as
gifts. Many of these are early paintings based on landscapes he had experienced not only in his
native area of the Grand River valley but during his rambles throughout North America. These date
from a time when Ahrens was particularly fond of painting twilight and early morning forest landscapes.
As there is no public demand to display them, they are stored away in vaults. The Kitchener Waterloo Art
Gallery owns 11 works, including a painting from the 1911 exhibition mentioned above.

Carl Ahrens was raised in Berlin, Ontario, and lived in Waterloo County for over 30 years. His popularity as
an artist is growing thanks in large part to the resurgence in interest in the Arts and Crafts movement of the
early 20th century, and a renewed interest in tonalism in both Canada and the United States.