B. 1870-1929 - Arthur Vidal Diehl was born in London in 1870, the youngest of 6 children. His father was the director of an Opera company and his mother a published novelist. Fabled to have conducted his father's orchestra at 16, by the time he was 19 he had abandoned his education at Oxford University and gone off to roam around Europe stopping briefly to study painting in Milan. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London before leaving for the US in 1891, where he arrived broke but in possession of a wealth of talents. >

He summered on Cape Cod every year after that until his death in 1929. His first studio was at the Pamet Coast Guard Station in Truro. He later had a studio in the Provincetown Art Shop, where he painted swiftly under the gaze of many onlookers, while he kept up a stream of comment. He is said to have been able to produce up to 25 paintings in a day and he always sold them directly and never to dealers. Diehl was always completely indifferent to price and artistic reputation, and painted voluminously as the only way to assure an income for his family.

From the artist archives of The Provincetown Art Association & Museum