Charles Frederick Naegele "Pool of my Imagination" Circa 1920

Beautiful oil on canvas painting of a young nude woman sing on a large rock in a enchanted grotto with two swans. The painting was executed in the 1920's and is in fine original condition. Unlined and housed in its original Stanford White hand carved wood gilt frame. Signed lower left. Provenance: Szynanski Gallery, Beverly Hills; Temple Steel Company, Chicago, Illinois; acquired from the above in 1980. Condition report: Stretcher bar mark center with corresponding light cracks.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, as a child Naegele moved with his parents to Memphis, where by 1873 he was apprenticed to a tombstone carver at three dollars a week. He also earned money painting signs, and it was through a sign commission that he met the marine painter, Charles Myles Collier, who gave painting lessons to the younger artist and then, in 1880, sent him to study in New York with William Sartain and William Merritt Chase. After completing his studies in 1882, Naegele remained in New York, quickly gaining favor as a portrait painter. He also designed medals and painted idealized figures of women portraying "Motherhood" and "American Beauty".

Later in his career, he turned increasingly to landscape paintings, particularly after his retirement to his hilltop studio, "Artcrest," near Marietta, Georgia. A winner of many exhibition prizes, he was a member of the Artists' Fund Society, the National Arts, Salmagundi and Lotos Clubs in New York, and the Atlanta Art Association. He died in Marietta in 1944.