Arnold Wiltz

Berlin-born American Arnold Wiltz was a modernist painter whose stylized landscape paintings created a dream-like quality that seemed to combine both Precisionism and Surrealism. Wiltz painted eerily clear, cool landscapes and buildings, and industrial scenes and was a member of the Woodstock art colony from 1923 until his premature death in 1937 in New York. Wiltz was married to artist Eva Madeline Shiff (1886-1966), and their granddaughter Linda Wiltz also became an artist.

There is a vivid description of his 1932 entry: “A saddle, hat and other equipment appearing prominently in the foreground, while in the middle distance is seen a horse, scratching his nose with his left hind hoof, and the layout of a race course. In this picture are combined stark realism with modern abstractism and interpretive design. Probably no picture in the American Section in Los Angeles attracted more attention than this picture of Arnold Wiltz.”