Valfred Thëlin ~ 1934-1991

Valfred Thëlin, the day I met him. February 1980.

As stated in the December 16 entry, it is my intention on this blog to devote some space to artists who have impressed and influenced me. The most logical person to start this off with is the late, great Valfred Thëlin - my #1 mentor, a cherished friend, and the person who got me truly excited about painting.

A long, long time ago in a place called Sarasota, Florida, I started messing around with watercolor. My roommate Rick brought home a cheap plastic paint set that we used to dabble with to augment episodes of altered consciousness. Eventually I graduated to a student set of tube watercolors and brushes. My work was somewhere between what I had drawn my whole life (drawing was my "thing" growing up), and what could be described as the school of Bad Roger Dean. My employment and most of my spare time was devoted to the guitar, and through that I made the acquaintance of a gentleman who was an old-time Sarasotan - the kind who remembered the days well before it became a tourist mecca. Floyd lived in a large Spanish-style building downtown that was formerly the Mira Mar Hotel. He shared this eccentric, rambling abode with a German artist named Flo Singer. Flo was a watercolorist. By and by, I was invited to visit, and went over with my guitar. The walls were covered with art - lots of watercolors including Flo's unique work (influenced by Egon Schiele), but I remember most vividly the instant I spied a small vertical landscape. Probably no more than 8"x10," it depicted a building on a hillside with a wild foreground and sky. I was stunned, and wasn't even sure it was a watercolor until Flo confirmed it; I had never seen a watercolor like that. It was signed, somewhat enigmatically, "Valfred." I enquired about the artist, and she told me he was fabulous, and that I was in luck: he would be doing a demonstration that Sunday night at the Hilton Leech Studio, at the time a nationally-known venue for visiting artists.

I showed up to a packed house, paid my $3 (!) and had to sit in the back. Valfred Thëlin was introduced by Katherine Rowland to lots of applause, dressed in a black velvet tunic and a pince-nez dangling from his neck. He certainly looked like an artist - longish hair swept back, and the proverbial artist's vandyke. He immediately engaged the audience and titillated us with a combination of art world anecdotes, Down East humor, borderline ribaldry, and personal reflection. He whipped out a 30"x40" watercolor board, quickly taped the edges, and continuing the patter without missing a beat, wielded a 3" brush making enormous slashes across it in cadmium yellow, orange, and red. I had no idea what he was doing. He then tossed that aside, and in about 15 minutes painted a startling sunset scene in his patented technique (and one which I made liberal use of for some time afterward). He sold it on the spot, and then went back to the big piece. The audience gasped as he squeezed an entire large tube of W&N phthalo blue onto the center of the picture. I knew then he was either a genius or a lunatic...maybe both. He covered most of the board, including the cadmium areas, until it looked almost black; it appeared ruined and I couldn't have imagined what was to happen next: while it was wet, he took a razor blade and palette knife and proceeded to carve out a mindbending depiction of Times Square at midnight - a cacophony of buildings, marquees, signs, people, taxis, the works. It was electric! I was totally blown away - I had never seen watercolor painted so boldly and aggressively. He ripped off the masking tape revealing the white border, and voila....it remains to this day the most dramatic watercolor demonstration I've ever seen. I was hooked. I wanted to do that. I signed up for the workshop right then and there, and that marked the real beginning of my watercolor journey.

Val was an encyclopedia of watercolor methods, many of which ironically evolved through his years as an oil painter (allergies caused him to switch to watercolor). He was a master of them all: tissue paper paintings, drip/pour paintings, acrylic watercolor, unusual gesso techniques, ink, airbrush, mixing oil with watercolor, razorblade sketching and painting, spattering, etc. - things I never saw anyone else do. He painted all subject matter and was equally adept in realistic and abstract work. He used a huge antique butcher's tray as a palette, which appeared to be a disaster area, but it was actually quite organized and he knew precisely where every color was. The delightful demonstrations were always punctuated with stories about his mother and family (he was a third-generation artist), his travels, personalities in the art world, and colorful experiences such as the time Errol Flynn saved the adolescent Valfred from drowning. There was never a dull moment.

He referred to himself as an "abstract realist."

"Painting may be abstract or realistic, depending on personal interpretation. I have no inhibitions about moving from what is called realistic to what is considered abstract, for I find relevance in both pertaining to the interpretation the individual may give a particular expression. What is real in my paintings is the image itself, which fuses with my ideas as I begin to paint. The painting seems to create itself during this process. Forms tinged with personal feelings remembered or hidden in my unconscious spring into being, and the painting unfolds into a world of light and depth with its own consciousness."

"The Creator and the Crater"

Award-winning photograph by Shirley Hummel of Val

in Costa Rica.

Val doing one of this famous razorblade sketches at Hilton Head.

Photograph by Shirley Hummel.

I took the workshop the next few years, everytime he came to town, and we became good friends. Val encouraged me quite a bit, and got me interested in artists I knew nothing about - Sargent, for one. I was able to stimulate him with my music. I signed up for a trip to Maine and Nova Scotia that he was leading with photographer Pete Carmichael - one of the "Two Arts" tours. He met the group at the Portland airport in a lobster costume, and that pretty much set the tone. We had a blast...the whole group (about 20) painted and shot pictures of that dramatic coastline, hitting most all of the famous places like Peggy's Cove, Monhegan Island, the lighthouses, etc along the way. I was already a decent draftsman, but it was on that trip that Val taught me how to really sketch on location. He did this everywhere we went, and at night entertained us in the local pubs, or the two of us went out exploring. He printed up a book of the trip containing his sketches, a number of which featured me. The late photographer Margarette Mead was also on that trip, and he did a sketch of Margaret and himself carrying me down the street after twisting my ankle during a night of carousing. He did another of me playing my guitar somewhere in Nova Scotia, and yet another of me sitting in with a band at one of the hotels.

Nick, Val's girlfriend (and later wife, Deidre), Val, Shirley Hummel.
On a very rough boat ride to Monhegan Island.

The trip ended in Ogunquit at Val's house on Shore Road, which sat atop a gigantic rock overlooking Perkin's Cove. We had a party with everybody donning crazy hats from his collection. I stayed on there for a couple of days with Val, his girlfriend Deidre, his daughters, and his wonderful mother, Vi. I recall dressing up in a costume and going to a New Year's Eve party (in September!) at a local watering hole. I don't remember much of the night except for a number of artists "in residence," each of us taking turns at the sketchbook, and the drinking games. Val held court, of course, and he was definitely the life of the party. The Thëlins were practically royalty and enjoyed no small notoriety in those parts... I had a helluva ride!

Val and I remained great friends, and anytime he came to Sarasota we looked for trouble and usually found it. Once, when I wasn't home, he climbed through the bedroom window of a guesthouse I lived in on Siesta Key, and hung one of my paintings upside down....never noticed until he made a joke about it! He had some serious health problems the last few years, attributed by him to a diet that consisted primarily of wine and cheese. He also had a habit of twirling the tip of his brush between his lips to make it point, and no doubt consumed enough cadmium and other chemicals over the decades to kill ten artists. He underwent a serious stomach surgery that was hard on him, and I think the last time I saw him was on Siesta Beach, working on his tan. He lived life in a big way.

Val died of a cerebral hemorrhage, collapsing at his front door, in the fall of 1991. He was "pre-Internet" so there isn't a whole lot out there on him, but I see more and more references all the time by former students, colleagues, art lovers, and collectors. He was and is a legend in the watercolor world, and I miss him dearly.

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Valfred Thëlin was an internationally recognized artist. He was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and was trained in the European apprentice tradition by his grandfather, a muralist who came to the United States from Sweden in the late 1800s. His father Carl Valfred Thelin, a commercial artist, strongly influenced his work as well. He went on to study at the School of the Art Institue of Chicago, and the Art Students League of New York, participating as well in seminars throughout Europe and working one-on-one with Hans Hofmann and Georgia O'Keefe. Valfred has been featured in major art publications and is in many museums including the Museum of Modern Art and Smithsonian, private collections, and galleries here and abroad. He conducted over 200 workshops and demonstrations in the USA and ten other countries, and was invited artist at three major universities. He juried dozens of competitions, held seminars in Mexico, and was the recipient of over 95 major awards. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society, among others, and listed in Who's Who in American Art. And last but not least, Valfred was a charter member of the exclusive WPA - Whiskey Painters of America!

Valfred's book, Watercolor: Let the Medium Do It, was published by Watson-Guptill and can still be obtained from many sources on the Internet. If you're lucky, you might be able to track down tapes from the Thëlin Video Workshop series.

For further reading, there are personal recollections of Val posted HERE.

I dedicated a painting to Val, and during the demonstration related some Val stories HERE.

A thread on the WetCanvas! site I started about Val HERE.

In addition to the credited shots, photographs of the Thëlin gallery sign, Val on the Oregon coast, and the last portrait are by Shirley Hummel. Used with permission and many thanks for her fantastic work!

I hope anybody who knew Val, or has something to relate about him or his work, will post here or contact me. Thanks!