The Short Happy Life of Norman F. Wells: a Mount Vernon Story, Part II

 

Newspaper announcement, 1939

When he registered for the draft in 1918, Norman Wells described himself as a “print expert.”

His employer, the prestigious commercial art gallery M. Knoedler & Co., prized his knowledge and taste. Yet he had started his career as a clerk, uninitiated in the art world.

Nearly every summer between 1924 and 1938, Norman traveled with his wife Mathilde to Europe. There he met with art dealers and visited museums and chateaux, wherever an Old Master print might turn up and he could make an offer. 

Paris, London, Amsterdam, Geneva – which city did he love most?

That would be Mount Vernon, N.Y., where he grew up rough-and-tumble with the neighborhood boys; friendships forged for life.

Norman joined Knoedler in 1897 when he was 22. I imagine the commute, which would last for fifty years. He steps onto a train at the Mount Vernon West station and rides to the city; walks down Fifth Avenue to the firm’s rowhouse gallery at 34^th Street.

Over time the company moves farther north and Norman keeps rising.

He is a busy man.

Back in turn-of-the-century Mount Vernon, an exhilarated Norman just became a volunteer fireman with Engine Company 3, a position he would hold for the rest of his life. Commissioners, chiefs, deputy chiefs, superintendents, and captains—he knew them all and they loved him like a brother, revered his modesty and judgment.

Mount Vernon, N.Y. Fire Department, 1908

Norman also had just dipped his toe into local Republican politics. During the next four decades, he would attend every party dinner, meeting, and inaugural buffet. He hobnobbed with the popular Mayors Edwin Fiske and Edward Brush and sought appointments on local commissions.

Perhaps his favorite Mount Vernon pursuit was the Mike Nitz Bowling Club, organized in fall of 1897—that lucky year—with Norman as its captain.

The club’s first big event did not occur at a bowling alley but on City Island, which is located in Long Island Sound very close to The Bronx.  

City Island is fun, the way it transports you to an eighteenth-century village on the Massachusetts coast. In 1897, when the bowlers crossed the bridge in a carriage lent by the local funeral home, City Island must have been a blast. 

City Island Drawbridge circa 1880
www.bridgesnyc.com 

Norman and nine of his friends went to Flynn’s Restaurant, where they danced till midnight and then devoured a sumptuous feast, according to the Mount Vernon Argus. Everyone was home by 4 in the morning.

In 1898 they had another great time: dinner at Bock’s Alleys in Mount Vernon, followed by performances on banjo and xylophone.

In 1899, the highlight of the year turned out to be a Decoration Day outing with baseball, fishing, boating, and a shore dinner to beat the band.

Checking the old scores in the local papers, I understand why the Mike Nitz bowlers were happiest when they were eating and drinking. The club ranked poorly in its league.

But the happy bowlers persisted: beer bottler William Hobby, lawyer George Appell, saloonkeeper Alvin Bardes, county clerk Leon St. Clair Dick, jeweler Alfred Schickerling, diamond setter Martin Van Orden, and Norman Wells.

They rolled on after Norman’s death, and never forgot him.

Parke-Bernet auction catalogue, 1946.
Mrs. Wells sold most of the couple's prints.  

See part I, August 13, 2025

https://www.throughthehourglass.com/2025/10/the-short-happy-life-of-norman-f-wells.html 

Note: During the summer of 1940, Mathilde Wells presented the Mount Vernon Public Library with print cases for the new Norman F. Wells Alcove on its spacious second floor. She changed the displays seasonally—bird etchings, scenes of old New York, and work by modern artists Louis Lozowick and Martin Lewis—until her death in 1964.

The Short Happy Life of Norman F. Wells: a Mount Vernon Story, Part I

M. Knoedler & Co.
14 East 57th Street, 1900 

 

Like many commuters, Norman Wells traveled by train between the suburbs and the city for nearly 50 years. It was just a half-hour ride from his hometown, Mount Vernon, N.Y., to Manhattan.

On Valentine’s Day, 1939, he left work on East 57^th Street and walked over to Grand Central Terminal, probably stopping to pick up a box of chocolates or a bouquet of flowers for his wife Mathilde.

On the train, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was just 65.  

At the time of his death, Norman Freeman Wells had achieved success that far exceeded his family’s expectations.  

He and his wife Mathilde lived in a large stucco house on the fancier side of town. Their home was filled with art, and the couple traveled extensively.  

Walter Wells, Norman’s father, descended from early English settlers. He had been a carpenter since boyhood. In the 1890s, he started building pedestals and managing display equipment at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1897, Norman began his career at M. Knoedler & Co., art dealers with an impeccable reputation, specializing in Old Master prints and post-Impressionist art.    

It’s not clear how Norman found his way to the gallery. He had no formal education in the field and must have been a quick study because he rose swiftly in the organization.

During the late nineteenth century, however, such a trajectory occurred more often than one might expect. As the antiquarian art market became increasingly competitive, enterprising young men sought entry-level jobs at shops and bookstores that dealt in maps, prints, and engravings.

Some started off sweeping floors. Those who prospered might eventually take over the store or go out on their own.

Originally, M. Knoedler & Co. was part of Goupil, Vibert & Cie, a Paris auction house that established a New York branch in 1848.* The branch’s founder, Michael Knoedler, eventually bought out Goupil. He left the gallery to his son Roland, who hired Norman as a clerk and promoted him quickly.

Knoedler advertisement, 1905

In 1908, when Norman married a Mount Vernon girl, Mathilde Kelly, one of the Knoedler sons attended the wedding and the firm gave the couple a piano and music cabinet for their new home, a small frame house on N. High Street set on a corner lot with a stone barn.  

Most of their years would be spent there, on the city’s west side, a largely German and Irish enclave. The neighborhood was their comfort.

Mount Vernon, N.Y., 1900s

 

Every summer, the Mount Vernon papers published an announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Norman F. Wells had sailed to Europe, where they would spend two months touring and Mr. Wells would conduct business. 

Norman learned well from an older colleague, Charles Carstairs, who worked closely with such high-end art collectors as the industrialist Henry C. Frick and the financier J. P. Morgan, Sr. When Carstairs was sent off to establish Knoedler’s Pittsburgh branch and subsequently moved to London to direct that branch, he left room for Norman to flourish.

The younger man developed a friendship with Herbert Greer French, a vice president at Proctor & Gamble, whom he advised on purchases of Old Masters prints. Eventually, this multitude formed the core of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s fine prints collection.  

At the time of his death, Norman was Knoedler’s secretary-treasurer. Many an artist inscribed and presented prints to him, which must have brought him great happiness.

What was his true passion, however?

Knoedler Annual Dinner, 1907;
Wells is among those standing.

 

 

To be continued.

*Dates vary. In 1863, the business officially became M. Knoedler & Co. 

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