Nordell, Carl [Johan David] (1885-1957)
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Nordell immigrated to the US when he was seven years old and grew up in “a large family with poor parents” in Westerly, RI (Norwich Bulletin 7 April 1910: 6). He nevertheless was able to attend the Rhode Island School of Design, where his talents soon were recognized and led to a productive career, both as a landscape painter and sought-after portraitist. Nordell studied at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, under Edmund C. Tarbell; the Art Students League under George Bridgman and Frank DuMond; and the Académie Julian, Paris, under Jean-Paul Laurens. In 1910 he was awarded the James William Paige Traveling Scholarship for study in Europe. He married Emma Alice Parker, an accomplished painter in her own right, in 1912. Nordell’s art was exhibited widely, at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco; the Corcoran Gallery; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; and many others. Nordell appears to have had a special affinity for Western New York, often showing his work at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Gallery and Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery; beginning in the late 1920s he spent summers at Chautauqua painting landscapes. Later he lived not far from Lake Erie in Westfield, NY. 2 works at Mead Art Museum. 2 works at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Source Consulted: Michael Preston Worley, “Carl Nordell,” askART
Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by Carl Nordell:
