Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
"Look, look!," he whispered from behind teeth that clicked like castanets. "See! He's coming!"
Alternate Title(s):Death Cell Vision
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1914
Dimensions:
40 1/2 × 32 1/4 in. (102.9 × 81.9 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Bequest of Carolyn Wyeth, 1996
Accession number: 96.1.13
Label Copy:
To earn a living in illustration meant creating some paintings of no personal interest at all. In May 1914 Wyeth wrote to his fellow Pyle alumnus and illustrator Sidney M. Chase, "To-day on my easel stands a canvas vividly portraying two murderers in a death-cell. The apparition of a hideous blood-stained face stares at them from the wall. It is only by using my utmost power of control that I do not get up from this note and destroy the damned thing! But patience! I see the opening clear, where I can choose what kind of thing shall be my output" (NCW to Sidney Chase, dated by NCW "Studio / Tuesday noon" and in another hand May 4, 1914, Wyeth Family Archives).
To earn a living in illustration meant creating some paintings of no personal interest at all. In May 1914 Wyeth wrote to his fellow Pyle alumnus and illustrator Sidney M. Chase, "To-day on my easel stands a canvas vividly portraying two murderers in a death-cell. The apparition of a hideous blood-stained face stares at them from the wall. It is only by using my utmost power of control that I do not get up from this note and destroy the damned thing! But patience! I see the opening clear, where I can choose what kind of thing shall be my output" (NCW to Sidney Chase, dated by NCW "Studio / Tuesday noon" and in another hand May 4, 1914, Wyeth Family Archives).
Research Number: NCW: 341
InscribedLower right: N C WYETH (underlined)
ProvenanceThe artist; gift to Joseph Hergesheimer, West Chester, PA; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth
Exhibition HistoryAlbany, GA, 1981, no. 12; Rockland, Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, "Every Picture Tells a Story," April 27-Dec. 30, 2013;
References
Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 43; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 252; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.535, p. 295
Curatorial RemarksIn May, 1914 Wyeth wrote, "To-day on my easle (sic) stands a canvas vividly portraying two murderers in a death-cell. The apparition of a hideous blood stained face stares at them from the wall. It is only by using my utmost power of control that I do not get up from this note and destroy the damned thing! But patience! I see the opening clear, where I can choose what kind of thing shall be my output." (NCW to Sidney Chase, dated by NCW "Studio / Tuesday noon" and in another hand May 4, 1914, Wyeth Family Archives)
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:transparency directly from painting