Lemhain Garwendz
(painter, 1753-1801)

Lemhain Garwendz was born in Hveitsvar in 1753. His father was a carpenter who had his own furniture factory with two dozen men working for him. The manufacture was on the same terrain as the family-house, just outside Hveitsvar. This is where Lemhain grew up.
Lemhain was the youngest son in a family with five children.

When Lemhain was 17, a fire destroyed the manufacture and the family house. Only Lemhain and his 10 year younger sister Rhadwen survived the fire: Lemhain because he was at school at the time of the fire, and Rhadwen was saved by a neighbour. She had bad injuries, and in later years she never showed her face to the public again due to ugly scars. In the few occassions she was on the streets, she wore a veil.
 
Lemhain and Rhadwen moved to a house in the centre of Hveitsvar. Lemhain quit school and had random jobs in the city. He was a teacher to his sister when she grew up. Being her only relative and help, he didn´t have to join the army.
Aged 22, Lemhain started his carreer as a painter. He started with portraits, but his blurred style was only appreciated by elder women. He stopped painting portraits when one of his models died and left him a lot of money.
 
Lemhain bought a carriage for the money and traveled into the rural environment of Hveitsvar to paint the landscape there. A year later he showed his collection of landscapes in a local gallery he had rent. These paintings sold extremely well. People came to Hveitsvar to buy his paintings. Young painters asked him to take them as a pupil, but Lemhain always refused - he'd rather stayed alone with his sister.
 
In 1889, the Emperor requested Lemhain to come to Ildritz and paint for him. The request came with an escort, and Lemhain couldn´t refuse the invitation. His sister was ill at the time and stayed at her aunts place. In Ildritz, Lemhain was given a place to work and stay in the imperial palace. He had taken his carriage with him, and the emperor made several journeys with him to see how the master-painter made sketches for the landscapes.
 
However, the finished paintings didn´t look like his former works. Lemhain said it was the freedom or even the duty of the artist to change the style of painting if the emotions requiered so, and now he had changed the environment and had to leave his hometown, it showed in his paintings. The emperor requested him to paint in his old style, but Lemhain never picked it up during his stay in Ildritz.
 
In 1892 he returned to Hveitsvar to visit his sister for a couple of months. On his return in Ildritz, he showed several new paintings in his old style of West-Salamandran, Scholvan, and Skaunsric. The emperor was pleased and asked him to come to Haimothli to paint the scenery there. Again, Lemhain couldn´t refuse the orders of the emperor. He went to Haimothli with the emperor and took his carriage with him. With the emperor he went to Kristalmeer and Wymar, up in De Taycha to make sketches and studies. However, in his room in Haimothli, he wasn´t able to paint in his old style again. Instead, he tried a whole new style, claiming it was fashionable in Salamandran to use that style.
 
It was clear it was impossible for Lemhain to perform as usual when he was in company of the emperor. Whenever he went back to see his family in Hveitsvar, he would bring back new paintings in his "Hveitsvar-style" (as it was called at the court). The emperor was quite upset about his, and doctors told him it was possible that Lemhain had a form of severe home-sickness that caused the different style.
 
In 1895 Lemhain returned from Ildritz to Hveitsvar for the funeral of his sister. He never went back to Ildritz after that. He showed some new paintings in 1896, some in old style, some in new style, but the new style paintings weren´t sold. He never had an exposition after that.
Lemhain died in 1801. He drowned himself in the Is river.
 
Lemhain wasn´t married and didn´t have any children. He was very on his own after the fire in his fathers furniture factory. The only person he had really contact with was his sister Rhadwen.
It was rumoured that it wasn´t Lemhain who made the paintings in "old style", but his sister. Because the scars in her face and the difficulties she had with walking, she couldn´t bring herself to public appearances, but she could go into the countryside in Lemhains carriage. And Lemhain sold the paintings for her, which was alright until he was invited by the emperor. The changes of style were telling, but after Rhadwens dead most people were sure: there were some paintings left to sell, but no painter to make any more. Lemhain had tried to interest the public for his own, "new style" paintings, but when they didn´t sell, he gave up painting.


The Black Mountains, impression


A man in the Moors


Salamandran