Jean Wagner Troemel, By the Costume Tent, oil on Masonite, 24 by 30 inches. Signed lower right, dated “55”. Written on frame verso, Jean Troemel, By the Costume Tent Ringling Bros. when last in Auburndale, 1954.
Jean Wagner Willhite, listed in Who’s Who in American Art in 1944, and a life member of New York’s Art Students’ League, was one of the leading artists in central Florida in the 1950’s. Growing up in Palm Beach, The Palm Beach Post, March 31, 1940, commented on an exhibit by the Palm Beach Art League, “In the student section, which assembles a most creditable collection of work by young artists from twelve to eighteen, Jean Wagner, daughter of Ralph Wagner, league president, and now a student in New York, won top honors with a nude of unusually luminous flesh tints.” When the Norton Museum of Art opened in 1941 with a costume ball, her parents led the opening parade.
Jean Wagner Troemel, watercolor, 14 1/2 by 21 1/2 inches. Sighed lower right.
After marriage in 1945 Jean began exhibiting as Jean Willhite and, after moving to Winter Haven in 1953, helped organize the Ridge Art Gallery and the Ridge Art Association. She later re-married in 1962 and began exhibiting and signing her work as Jean Wagner Troemel. Troemel moved to St. Augustine sometime before 1970.
Education: Art Students League, NYC; with George Bridgeman, Frank Dumond; Rasko School, New York; University of New Mexico; with Randal Davey; National Academy of Design; with Sidney Dickinson; Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach; with Elliott O’Hara at Norton Gallery, Palm Beach. Membership: Palm Beach Art League; Society of the Four Arts; Ridge Art Association, Winter Haven, director; Palm Beach Art League; Florida Federation of Art; Florida Artist Group; Blue Dome Fellowship; Society of The Four Arts. Exhibits: From 1940 to 1944 as Jean Wagner. Palm Beach Art League, at Woman’s Club, March 1939, a pastel, Bob, best portrait by an amateur, and the Norrie A. Erb Memorial prize for outstanding work of art in junior department, an oil still-life, Nude; Palm Beach Art League, at George Washington Hotel, March-April 1940, Nora A. Erb first prize for students, Nude; Edison College and Town Club, Fort Myers, October 1941, Nude, loaned by Norton Art Gallery; Florida Federation of Art Annual, at Norton Gallery and School of Art, December 3-5, 1942, two watercolors; Society of The Four Arts, 5th Annual Members Exhibit, Palm Beach, January 1943, best watercolor, Smathers Lane, oil, Antique Pitcher; Palm Beach Art League, 25th Annual, March 1943, The Letter; Society of The Four Arts, 6th Annual Members Exhibit, Palm Beach, January 1944, oil, Before the Storm, watercolors, Mountain Shack, Arvilla, 2nd prize, Landmark; Palm Beach Art League, Norton Gallery, March 1944. As Jean Wagner Willhite. Palm Beach Art League 27th Annual, Norton Gallery, March 1945, pastel portrait, James Mallory Willson; Palm Beach Art League, 5th Annual Christmas exhibit, December 1945; Florida Federation of Art, 19th Annual Exhibition, Miami Beach, December 1945, Miss Coquette; Society of The Four Arts, 8th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1945-January 1946, oil, My Captain, a portrait of her husband and a watercolor, Stormy Spring; Society of The Four Arts, 10th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1947-January 1948; Blue Dome Fellowship, at Housekeeper’s Clubhouse, 2985 Bayshore Drive, January-February 1948; Palm Beach Art League, 30th Annual, March 1948; Palm Beach Art League, 32nd Annual, March 1950, oil, Laura; ; Ridge Art Association, Winter Haven, January 1953 (listed as from Palm Beach); Ridge Art Association, Winter Haven, March 1953, twenty paintings, including oil portrait of Mrs. Rodney Padgett; Palm Beach Art League, 36th Annual Members’ Exhibition, March 1954, Dry Dock; St. Petersburg Art Association March 1954, with four other central Florida artists; Florida Artist Group, 6th Annual Circuit, Palm Beach Art League, April 1955, By the Costume Tent; Ridge Art Association, at Winter Haven Junior Woman’s Club in observation of American Art Week, November 1955, an oil landscape, East Across Lake Howard; Florida Federation of Art, 29th Annual, Miami Beach Art Center, November 1955, third prize, Behind the Front; Florida State Fair, Tampa, 1956, 1st prize, The Morning Edition, also exhibited in Sarasota National Exhibit and purchased by the Sarasota Art Association; Ringling Museum of Art, Paintings of the Circus, March 1956, The Snake Girl, By the Chow Tent, Wells Sawyer Award; Palm Beach Art League 38th Annual, March 1956, prize best representational (A painting of a building with worn brick.); Art Association of Tarpon Springs, Villa Plumosa, April 1956, twenty paintings, Florida subjects, Circus Roustabout, Cathedral at Tampa, Rodeo at Arcadia, Seminole Girl, Boatyards at Tarpon Springs, Spanish Archway at Palm Beach; Florida Federation of Art, 30th Annual Exhibit, West Palm Beach, November 1956, award, Antiquity; Tampa Art Institute, November 1956 with Jack Cartlidge; Sprague Art School Gallery, St. Petersburg, January 1957; Florida State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition, Tampa, January 29-February 9, 1957, 67 Elm Street, Death of a Doorway, also in one man show, Jacksonville Art Association, Barry College, Miami, University of Florida, Tampa Art Institute, Gallery XII, Winter Haven; Palm Beach Art League, at Norton Gallery, March 1957, watercolor, Decadence; Harry Rich Art Competition, April 1957, 8300 Biscayne Blvd., 67 Elm Street; Florida Federation of Art 30th Annual, Sarasota, November 1957, first prize, The Red Door; Other Florida State Fair Showings, 1957, 67 Elm Street; 1960, The Mountain; Tampa Art Institute, one woman jury, Members Show, May 1958; Jacksonville Art Museum, one woman show, January 1959; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, February 1959; University of Florida Union, Bryan Lounge, February 1959; Sarasota Art Association, Ringling Museum, March 1959, The Unrest; Palm Beach Art League 41st Annual, Norton Gallery, West Palm Beach, March 1959, 1st prize, Celia List award; Society of The Four Arts, 21st Annual, Contemporary American Paintings, December 1959, oil, The Mountain; Ridge Art Center, Winter Haven; Sarasota Art Association, Members’ Annual Juried Exhibition, February 1960, jury of selection; Palm Beach Art League 43rd annual members exhibit, Norton Gallery, March 1961, award of merit for graphics; Vendome Gallery, NYC; Dallas Museum of Art; Santa Fe Museum of Art; Southeastern Annual, High Museum, Atlanta; Ringling Museum of Art, Circus Show, 3rd prize. From 1962 on as Jean Willhite Troemel.
