Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Walden Pond Revisited
Alternate Title(s):Thoreau at Walden Pond
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1932/1933
Dimensions:
58 1/8 × 70 in. (147.6 × 177.8 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Bequest of Carolyn Wyeth, 1996
Accession number: 96.1.34
Label Copy:
N. C. Wyeth was a great admirer of philosopher/naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), finding in the writer’s works artistic inspiration and a remarkably sympathetic guide to Wyeth’s quest for meaning in life and art. The many visits Wyeth made to Walden Pond inspired him to create this fanciful view of Thoreau’s world. Its imagery is drawn from Thoreau’s books, principally Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854), in which Thoreau chronicled the twenty-six months and two days that he spent living in a rustic cabin on the shores of the pond. Thoreau’s bean field, his boat, a fox, a pair of blue birds, the nearby railroad, and the village of Concord, Massachusetts, are all referenced in Wyeth’s painting. The meticulously rendered botanical specimens in the foreground speak to Thoreau’s reputation as a naturalist. Looming over the pond, the spectral figure of Thoreau suggests the artist’s own experience of pilgrimage to the site. The painting’s impact derives from skewed perspectives, changing scale, heightened color and the fantasy cloudscape lit with shafts of light. Through the use of these modern stylistic conventions, Wyeth hoped to signal the relevance of Thoreau’s writings to contemporary life.
N. C. Wyeth was a great admirer of philosopher/naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), finding in the writer’s works artistic inspiration and a remarkably sympathetic guide to Wyeth’s quest for meaning in life and art. The many visits Wyeth made to Walden Pond inspired him to create this fanciful view of Thoreau’s world. Its imagery is drawn from Thoreau’s books, principally Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854), in which Thoreau chronicled the twenty-six months and two days that he spent living in a rustic cabin on the shores of the pond. Thoreau’s bean field, his boat, a fox, a pair of blue birds, the nearby railroad, and the village of Concord, Massachusetts, are all referenced in Wyeth’s painting. The meticulously rendered botanical specimens in the foreground speak to Thoreau’s reputation as a naturalist. Looming over the pond, the spectral figure of Thoreau suggests the artist’s own experience of pilgrimage to the site. The painting’s impact derives from skewed perspectives, changing scale, heightened color and the fantasy cloudscape lit with shafts of light. Through the use of these modern stylistic conventions, Wyeth hoped to signal the relevance of Thoreau’s writings to contemporary life.
Research Number: NCW: 759
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH; Label on reverse, upper right: "Detach this stub and fix to back of work. / Title: WALDEN POND REVISITED (in NCW's hand) / Artist: N. C. WYETH (in N. C. Wyeth's hand) / Additional cards may be obtained as noted / on announcement."
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth
Exhibition HistoryWest Chester, PA, 1933, no. 69; Philadelphia, PA, 1935(2); West Chester, PA, 1935(2), no. 1; West Chester, PA, Chester County Art Association, "6th Annual Exhibition," May 23 - June 6, 1937, no. 58, as "Thoreau at Walden Pond"; Chadds Ford, PA, 1995, no. 13, illus. b/w p. 40; Concord, MA, Concord Museum, "Visiting Thoreau's Walden," May 21 - Sept. 19, 2004; Tokyo, Japan, United States Embassy (Art in Embassies Program), May 2007 - , illus. p. 47
References
"Famous Artist Lays Aside His Brushes to Chat With Interviewer in His Studio," (West Chester, PA) Daily Local News, Nov. 11, 1932, ps. 1 and 10, mentions painting seen in studio; "Wyeths Hold One-Family Exhibition," Philadelphia Record, March 31, 1935, 4: p. 6; C. H. Bonte, "That Gifted Wyeth Family Exhibiting at the Alliance," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 31, 1935, p. SO 9; "'Walden Pond Revisited' Deserves Close Study," (West Chester, PA) Daily Local News, Oct. 16, 1935, p. 7 (available on AAA microfilm roll no. 4003); illus. in b/w on cover, "The Saturday Review of Literature," (vol. XX, no. 24 (Oct. 7, 1939); Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950, " unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 85; David Michaelis, N. C. Wyeth, A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 301; W. Barksdale Maynard, Walden Pond, A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), ps. 236-237; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), P.39, p. 817; Christine B. Podmaniczky, "N. C. Wyeth, American Regionalist" in Rural Modern, American Art Beyond the City (NY: Rizzoli, 2016), p. 164, illus. in color, p. 164; Thoreau Society Bulletin (Thoreau Society: Concord, MA), no. 298 (Summer 2017), illus. in b/w on cover;
Curatorial RemarksAn interviewer for the West Chester Daily Local News visiting Wyeth's studio in November, 1932, reported seeing this painting: "...the artist has felt so keenly the presence of Thoreau in the famous region around Concord village and Walden pond that he has depicted him standing, wraith-like, looking down upon the beautiful rustic countryside in which he lived his life."
A series of letters written by the artist in 1939 to an editor at Houghton Mifflin indicates that this painting was the result of Wyeth's emotional reactions to spending several nights at Walden Pond. (see letters NCW to Lovell Thompson, Houghton Mifflin archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University). In a review of its exhibition in West Chester, PA, in Oct. 1935, Wyeth is quoted as saying "I have undoubtedly reached my highest form of expression in the Thoreau picture . . ." (West Chester, PA, Daily Local News, Oct. 16, 1935). The portrait of Thoreau, with its indistinct facial features, recalls the same treatment applied to his 1929 portrait of his mother. Charles W. Cook, an independent scholar, has suggested that Wyeth's source for the portrait was B. D. Maxham's 1856 daguerreotype of Thoreau which was widely published. The Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide of the composition drawing (NCWS.95.1825.254).
In 1939, Wyeth gave permission for Houghton Mifflin to use the image in newspaper advertisements for "Thoreau" by Henry Seidel Canby. A detail of the image was used on the cover of "The Saturday Review of Literature" (Oct. 7, 1939) which contained a review of Canby's book.
A series of letters written by the artist in 1939 to an editor at Houghton Mifflin indicates that this painting was the result of Wyeth's emotional reactions to spending several nights at Walden Pond. (see letters NCW to Lovell Thompson, Houghton Mifflin archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University). In a review of its exhibition in West Chester, PA, in Oct. 1935, Wyeth is quoted as saying "I have undoubtedly reached my highest form of expression in the Thoreau picture . . ." (West Chester, PA, Daily Local News, Oct. 16, 1935). The portrait of Thoreau, with its indistinct facial features, recalls the same treatment applied to his 1929 portrait of his mother. Charles W. Cook, an independent scholar, has suggested that Wyeth's source for the portrait was B. D. Maxham's 1856 daguerreotype of Thoreau which was widely published. The Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide of the composition drawing (NCWS.95.1825.254).
In 1939, Wyeth gave permission for Houghton Mifflin to use the image in newspaper advertisements for "Thoreau" by Henry Seidel Canby. A detail of the image was used on the cover of "The Saturday Review of Literature" (Oct. 7, 1939) which contained a review of Canby's book.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 2/2002