Bessie Wessel

The artist was born Bessie Hoover on January 7, 1889 in Brookville, Indiana one of four children the daughter of Frank M. Hoover and Minnie Reifel. Encouraged to pursue her artistic talent by her school teacher father, Bessie painted from an early age and enrolled in the Cincinnati Art Academy (1906) to study with L.H. Meakin and Herman Wessel, and she joined Frank Duveneck’s class (1909-1915) by invitation from Duveneck.  She became a member of the Academy faculty in the fall of 1915 and was a conscientious teacher. During her teaching years she got to work with and learned to love Herman H. Wessel, whom she married in August 1917 at the Gloucester cottage of Frank Duveneck.

The marriage of Bessie and Herman Wessel in 1917 was a quiet one because the couple was mourning the death of their close friend and colleague L.H. Meakin. The couple spent their honeymoon in Paris and Italy and returned to Cincinnati to spend their lives as artists and teachers. When Duveneck died in 1919, both Bessie and Herman vowed at Duveneck’s Memorial Service to “cherish the nobility of his ideals, striving not only to live up to the best in ourselves as he would have us do, but to keep and pass on to those with whom he may be associated, the teachings and ideals of one who has been an inspiration…not only in art but in life itself.” (Cincinnati Art Club archives, from the Memorial Service dated March 30, 1919.) 

In 1929 the Wessels built a large studio in Eden Park near the Cincinnati Art Museum where they spent the rest of their lives and painted throughout Europe. In 1923 the couple had painted in Norway and England and Bessie began to paint with Jane Peterson, Anne Carleton, A.T. Hibbard, Frederick Mulhaupt and others in and around Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts (summers) and in the Cincinnati area with her husband Herman (who painted many murals). She was a member and President (1917-1919) of the Cincinnati Women’s Art Club (awards in 1937, 1939, 1940, 1948, 1950), the Cincinnati Professional Artists Club and the Hoosier Salon (awards in 1943, 1945, 1947). She exhibited almost exclusively in Ohio at the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Ohio State Fair and at the various clubs she joined. 

Although Herman was influenced by the Modernists, Bessie was not and she remained an impressionist who focused on academic accuracy in drawing. Both Herman and Bessie were considered “Duveneck experts” until they died and Herman restored many paintings by Duveneck after 1930. After Hemran’s 1959 death, Bessie finished a series of Indian paintings titled Portraits from the Plains  that was exhibited in Cincinnati and within a few days the show was sold-out. The renown female painter died a celebrated painter-teach on January 29, 1973 in Cincinnati. 

For some reason, Bessie Wessel also painted under the name Gwendolyn Wesley. She is best known for portraiture, landscapes, still life and miniatures, and is represented in the American Legion Auxiliary Headquarters (Indianapolis), Anderson House (Washington, D.C.), Christian College (Columbia, MO) and elsewhere.