One of the weird things about writing biography is accounting for the unpleasant things your subject has done. Sometimes they’re funny: Gertrude Hoffmann knew she was ripping off the Ballets Russes when she went on tour with her Russian ballet, but they were booked in London and she was a mimic, so what did they expect her to do? Sometimes they’re sad: Hoffmann didn’t write a single thing about her son’s death in her journals at Wake Forest, which I eventually ascribed to her Christian Science beliefs. But I felt a real connection to Hoffmann and felt that I could understand her foibles.
This time around, it feels a bit different. Working on the first chapter for my Hippodrome book, I first focused on Arthur Voegtlin’s set designs for the opening season. Now that the academic version of the essay is drafted, I wanted to think about Voegtlin more as a person. I know that he was influenced by working with his dad, a noted scenic artist of the nineteenth century. So I looked for more information on him. WIlliam Voegtlin painted actual landscape paintings along with drop curtains and flats. Ok, that’s useful because Arthur wanted to be a fine artist too.
William Voegtlin landscape
He was a member of the Bohemian Club, an influential all-male organization for artists, writers, and politicians in San Francisco. That helps me gauge his fame in the era when they lived in California. (Plus, it affirms a surprising thing I found out in my last book, the way that San Francisco in the nineteenth century influenced NYC in the early twentieth.)
William Voegtlin c.1876 from the postcard below
Members of the Bohemian Club, 1876-1877, via San Francisco Public Library digital collection https://digitalsf.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A153552
So William Voegtlin was first married to Bertha Fleichman in Illinois in 1857. She was an immigrant from Baden, Germany (then a part of Prussia). William was Swiss. Once they were married, Bertha gave birth to nine children, only two of whom survived until adulthood: firstborn Arthur and younger brother Emil. Both sons worked with William in the scene painting trade, first in Chicago and then in New York. In 1883, Bertha ran off with a family friend, William asked his lawyer to start divorce proceedings, and then they both independently moved from New York City to the California — Bertha in Oakland with her (also married) paramour and William in Los Angeles working on the ornamentation for a newly-constructed opera house.
Image via Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive by Michael Goodman
https://shakespeareillustration.org/2016/08/01/oberon-titania-puck-and-bottom/
According to the Los Angeles Herald, William’s decorations included a painted asbestos drop curtain, ringed in ermine white and gold paint, with a medallion illustrating the scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream where Oberon wakes Titania both from her sleep and her enchantment. As a result, she sees that Bottom, who she had been snuggling in the forest, was in fact an ass. The “figures of the fairies and the angels [an addition to Shakespeare’s original cast] are exquisitely painted in Herr Voegtlin’s best style”. This scene was commonly illustrated in printed editions of the play from this period. It also allows William to paint a kind of wish fulfillment: the scene of a wife’s ridiculous dalliance and a validated husband taking her home.
While he worked in Los Angeles, William received word from Bertha that their divorce had gone through. He met a woman named Lizzie Richie, a dressmaker. Newpaper stories note that they met in a restaurant, which just makes me think of the rhyme from the Blondie song (“you could tell I was no debutante”). They married two months later. Three weeks after the happy day, Lizzie received a letter (or discovered one — stories vary): William Voegtlin was still married to Bertha, and if he didn’t pay, she’d reveal his bigamy to the press! Lizzie may have tried to get William to pay for her silence too. In any case, it didn’t last long.
Daily Alta California, Volume 38, Number 12855, 24 June 1885, via California Digital Newspaper Collection
I love the descriptions of the second Mrs. Voegtlin in trial coverage. Here, she’s “most becomingly dressed.” An earlier story goes into even more detail:
“The fair prosecutor was a beautiful demiblonde, tastefully dressed, with a rich sealskin, and handsome diamonds in her ears — the whole attire topped with a full-feathered hat that was very becoming to her countenance — a fact the lady was evidently well aware of.”
The half-modest blushes and the self-awareness about her attractive hat seems like such damning details. Women appearing in court have to look respectable and attractive, but they can’t look like they know that’s what they’re doing. It reminds me of the discourse around E. Jean Carroll’s wardrobe last week.
On June 24, 1885, William Voegtlin was acquitted. Lizzie instead moved for her marriage to be annulled. William moved away, leaving behind numerous unpaid bills along with his ex-wife. The Pacific Bee archly noted: “William Voegtlin, the scenic artist who figured so conspicuously in a bigamy case a few weeks ago, skipped town, presumably en route to New York. His departure will be mourned by many creditors. Voegtlin had a year’s engagement with the California Theater at a very lucrative salary, but his many debts pressed too hard on him, and he concluded to retire.”
William’s sons shared his expensive tastes. Emil got into particular trouble, which I’ll discuss in my next post.
