Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
"Couldn't he write about common people--about cops and bums and sailors and crooks and places where reg'lar people lived?"
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1919
Dimensions:
20 1/16 × 14 1/16 in. (51 × 35.7 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Bequest of Carolyn Wyeth, 1996
Accession number: 96.1.19
Label Copy:
The publication history of this painting provides an excellent example of how publishers used and reused artists’ work. The image was first published in a horizontal format, almost twice as wide as the present size, in Collier's Weekly Magazine. Scribner’s acquired the painting for $25.00 and then an artist—perhaps N. C. Wyeth, perhaps an artist in the Scribner’s art department—adapted the painting to a vertical format suitable for the frontispiece of a book page. The canvas was cut at both sides, height was added to the top of the picture with an extra piece of canvas, and the design of the interior space was reworked. The adapted image was published as the frontispiece in Hiker Joy, a collection of short stories by James B. Connolly (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920).
The publication history of this painting provides an excellent example of how publishers used and reused artists’ work. The image was first published in a horizontal format, almost twice as wide as the present size, in Collier's Weekly Magazine. Scribner’s acquired the painting for $25.00 and then an artist—perhaps N. C. Wyeth, perhaps an artist in the Scribner’s art department—adapted the painting to a vertical format suitable for the frontispiece of a book page. The canvas was cut at both sides, height was added to the top of the picture with an extra piece of canvas, and the design of the interior space was reworked. The adapted image was published as the frontispiece in Hiker Joy, a collection of short stories by James B. Connolly (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920).
Research Number: NCW: 978
InscribedUpper left: N. C. WYETH (underlined); written in pencil on upper stretcher bar: #B16476 (illegible) 3 1/2 x 5 1/2; attached to stretcher on reverse: partial Scribner's Magazine label
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth
Exhibition HistoryChadds Ford, PA, 2005
References
Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Brandywine River Museum library, p. 70; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 256; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.766, p. 391
Curatorial RemarksThis painting was first published in a horizontal format, almost twice as wide, in Collier's Weekly Magazine. The artist then adapted it to the vertical format suitable for the frontispiece of a book page by cutting the image at both sides, adding height to the top of the picture with an extra piece of canvas, and reworking the design of the interior space.
According to Scribner's records (Scribner's file, Brandywine River Museum), $100 was paid to the artist for the book rights for the four Collier's pictures that were reproduced in Hiker Joy. The number on the stretcher corresponds to one of the numbers on the Scribner's card.
According to Scribner's records (Scribner's file, Brandywine River Museum), $100 was paid to the artist for the book rights for the four Collier's pictures that were reproduced in Hiker Joy. The number on the stretcher corresponds to one of the numbers on the Scribner's card.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1. Transparency directly from painting; 2. Image as it appears in Collier's Weekly Magazine, June 28, 1919, p. 7
Photo Credit:1. Rick Echelmeyer, 7/15/2005;