A prominent landscape painter of late 19th and early 20th-century California, Elmer Wachtel specialized in panoramic desert and mountain landscapes using impressionist brushstrokes. His early works were tonalist in mood, and his later paintings were more decorative and light hearted.

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in Lanark, Illinois where he worked on a farm. In 1882, he moved to San Gabriel, California to join his rancher-brother who, married to the sister of artist Guy Rose, managed the extensive Rose ranch. Wachtel taught himself to play the violin, and then, while working as a furniture store clerk, became first violinist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

He began sketching stil...