Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Walden Pond Revisited
Alternate Title(s):Walden Pond
Medium: Tempera, possibly mixed with other media, on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: 1942
Dimensions:
42 × 48 in. (106.7 × 121.9 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Bequest of Carolyn Wyeth, 1996
Accession number: 96.1.42
Label Copy:
N. C. Wyeth was a great admirer of philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), and found artistic inspiration in Thoreau’s writing. 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 more than two years of his life spent living in a rustic cabin on the shores of the pond. Thoreau’s bean field, his boat, a fox, a pair of bluebirds, 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.
Research Number: NCW: 54
InscribedLower left: N.C. WYETH; on reverse, Renaissance Panel label, no. 1042, dated 7/24/41; on reverse of panel in upper right corner in pencil: Ann Wyeth McCoy
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth
Exhibition HistoryNew York, NY, 1942, no. 90, illus. b/w p. 22 (sky area reworked sometime after this exhibition); Wilmington, DE, 1942(2), no. 37, as "Walden Pond"; Lincoln, MA, DeCordova Museum, "Henry David Thoreau as a Source for Artistic Inspiration," June 6 - Sept. 9, 1984, no. 31 p. 51; Chadds Ford, PA, 1995, no. 14, ps.42-43, illus. b/w p. 41; Akron, OH, Akron Museum of Art, June 15 - Sept. 1, 2002, and Lawrence, KS, Spencer Museum of Art, Sept. 21 - Nov. 17, 2002, "N. C. Wyeth from the Brandywine River Museum Collection"; Concord, MA, Concord Museum, N. C. Wyeth's Men of Concord, April 15 - September 18, 2016, ps.66, 67;
References
Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950, " unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 97; The Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 125 (Fall 1973), illus. in b/w; Carl Little, Paintings of New England (Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 1996), color illus., p. 102; Richard J. Schneider, ed., Thoreau's Sense of Place, Essays in American Environmental Writing (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000), b/w cover illus.; W. Barksdale Maynard, Walden Pond, A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), ps. 236-237, illus. b/w p. 7; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), P.58, p. 826-827; Mark Sullivan, "Henry David Thoreau in the American Art of the 1950s," The Concord Saunterer, New Series, vol. 8, 2010, ps. 71-73, illu. b/w p. 73
Curatorial RemarksThis tempera was painted between July 1941 and April 1942, a copy of the circa 1933 oil on canvas version. The design was undoubtedly transferred from canvas to panel with the aid of lantern slide projector. (Lantern slide of composition drawn in charcoal probably on paper, NCWS.95.1825.254, Brandywine River Museum of Art). The minor differences in the two painted versions include more detail to the figure of Thoreau. Sometime after the 1942 National Academy of Design exhibition, Wyeth reworked the sky area, as evidenced by a comparison between the reproduction in the exhibition catalogue and an archival photograph taken by Edward J. S. Seal, dated "Oct-7 1944".
For information on Wyeth's sources for the portrait of Thoreau see the entry for the earlier version, NCW 759. A conservation examination in April 1995 revealed that the artist may have used media other than egg tempera (Timothy Jayne, Twistback Art Conservancy, Ltd., March, 15, 1995).
For information on Wyeth's sources for the portrait of Thoreau see the entry for the earlier version, NCW 759. A conservation examination in April 1995 revealed that the artist may have used media other than egg tempera (Timothy Jayne, Twistback Art Conservancy, Ltd., March, 15, 1995).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1. Transparency directly from painting; 2. Archival photograph showing original brushwork in sky area
Photo Credit:1. Brandywine River Museum photo file; 2. SANBORN STUDIO / WILMINGTON, DELAWARE / PRINT NOT PERMANENT / PUBLICATION PHOTO