Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Hunter
Alternate Title(s):The Call of the Wild
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1906
Dimensions:
38 7/8 × 26 5/8 in. (98.7 × 67.6 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Margaret K. Blodgett, 1972
Accession number: 72.10
Label Copy:
Pressured by his mother to reduce the action in his pictures, the artist conceived this contemplative image in August, 1906, as a cover illustration for McClure's Magazine. (Pentimenti from a title box with the wording "McClures / Magazine" are visible in the space above the figure.) Howard Pyle, who was then art editor of McClure's, thought it "the strongest and most poetic thing" Wyeth had done (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, August 3, 1906, Wyeth Family Archives). When McClure's suffered financial problems that autumn and the publisher was unable or unwilling to buy the painting, Wyeth sold reproduction rights to Outing. Outing published the painting as part of a five-picture series called "The Indian in His Solitude."
Wyeth gave The Hunter to Thomas H. Blodgett (1878-1964), who from 1902-1908 was western representative in Chicago of Outing Magazine. In 1909 Blodgett came to New York as president of the Outing Publishing Company (Obituary, New York Times, Oct. 5, 1964).
This design was reproduced on Noritake China (plates and vases) manufactured between 1911 and 1918. Lamp globes, also painted in Japan, were made into hurricane lamps by the Pittsburgh Lamp, Brass and Glass Company, circa 1908-1910.
Pressured by his mother to reduce the action in his pictures, the artist conceived this contemplative image in August, 1906, as a cover illustration for McClure's Magazine. (Pentimenti from a title box with the wording "McClures / Magazine" are visible in the space above the figure.) Howard Pyle, who was then art editor of McClure's, thought it "the strongest and most poetic thing" Wyeth had done (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, August 3, 1906, Wyeth Family Archives). When McClure's suffered financial problems that autumn and the publisher was unable or unwilling to buy the painting, Wyeth sold reproduction rights to Outing. Outing published the painting as part of a five-picture series called "The Indian in His Solitude."
Wyeth gave The Hunter to Thomas H. Blodgett (1878-1964), who from 1902-1908 was western representative in Chicago of Outing Magazine. In 1909 Blodgett came to New York as president of the Outing Publishing Company (Obituary, New York Times, Oct. 5, 1964).
This design was reproduced on Noritake China (plates and vases) manufactured between 1911 and 1918. Lamp globes, also painted in Japan, were made into hurricane lamps by the Pittsburgh Lamp, Brass and Glass Company, circa 1908-1910.
Research Number: NCW: 93
InscribedLower left: To friend Blodgett / from N.C. WYETH (underlined) / 1906; on reverse, written on canvas: cover / (3 illegible lines)
ProvenanceThe artist; Thomas Harper Blodgett (president of Outing Publishing Company, 1909-1915); Margaret Kendrick (Mrs. Thomas H.) Blodgett, Great Barrington, MA, to 1972
Exhibition HistoryHarrisburg, PA, 1965, no. 52, as "Call of the Wild"; Chadds Ford, PA, 1972, no. 14, with reproduction print (image size 8 5/8 x 5 3/4 in.) included in back pocket of catalogue; New York, NY, New York Cultural Center, "N. C. Wyeth," 15 Nov.-31 Dec. 1972; Brookings, SD, 1973, no. 5, and illus. in color on catalogue cover; Greenville, SC, 1974, no. 50; Chadds Ford, PA, 1976 (2); New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, "Turn-of-the-Century America: Paintings, Graphics, Photographs, 1890-1910," 30 June-2 Oct. 1977 (also, St. Louis Art Museum, 1 Dec. 1977-12 Jan. 1978, Seattle Art Museum 2 Feb.-12 Mar. 1978, and Oakland Art Museum 4 Apr.-28 May 1978), p. 194; Harrisburg, PA, William Penn Memorial Art Museum, "Pennsylvania Painters from Commonwealth Collections, 15 Jan.-4 Mar. 1979, no. 56; Roswell, NM, 1981, no number; Easton, MD, Academy of the Arts, "America's Storytellers: N. C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle", Dec. 2, 1999 - Jan. 22, 2000; Chadds Ford, PA, 2002(2); Rockland, Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, "Every Picture Tells a Story," April 27-Dec. 30, 2013;
References
All Outdoors Magazine (Autumn 1913), cover illustration; American History Illustrated, vol. I, no. 2 (May 1966), cover illustration under the title, "The Call of the Wild"; Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), p. 172; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), ps. 59, 268, color illustration p. 56; Peggy Robbins, "The Magic of N. C. Wyeth," South Carolina Wildlife (Jan.-Feb. 1979), color illustration p. 17; Brandywine River Museum, Catalogue of the Collection, 1969-1989 (Chadds Ford, PA: Brandywine Conservancy, 1991), p. 200, b/w illustration p. 197; Erin R. Corrales-Diaz, "The Indian In His Solitude, N. C. Wyeth's Images of Native Americans," Nineteenth Century, Magazine of the Victorian Society in America, vol. 28, no. 2 (Fall 2008), p. 10; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.151, p. 152; Nancy K. Anderson, George de Forest Brush, The Indian Paintings (National Gallery of Art, 2008), ps. 174;
Curatorial RemarksPressured by his mother to reduce violent action in his pictures, the artist conceived this image in August, 1906, as a cover illustration for McClure's Magazine. (Pentimenti from a title box with the wording "McClures / Magazine" are visible in the space above the figure.) Howard Pyle, who was then art editor of McClure's, thought it "the strongest and most poetic thing" Wyeth had done (NCW to HZW, "I am going to write in pencil...", and dated in another hand August 3, 1906, Wyeth Family Archives). McClure's suffered financial problems that fall and the publisher was unable or unwilling to buy the painting. Wyeth sold reproduction rights to Outing.
Outing printed a number of different sized reproductions of the five "Solitude" paintings. In the Dec. 1907 issue (unpaginated, Outing Magazine Advertiser), the publishers advertised reproductions 12 x 16 inches, mounted on heavy boards 17 x 22 inches overall. A page from an advertising section torn from an unidentified magazine offered a boxed set of reproductions, 14 x 23 inches, mounted to 17 x 27 inches (Library, Delaware Art Museum, incorrectly dated August 1904).
Wyeth gave "The Hunter" to Thomas H. Blodgett (1878-1964), who from 1902-1908 was western representative in Chicago of Outing Magazine. In 1909, Blodgett came to New York as president of the Outing Publishing Company. (See obituary, New York Times, Oct. 5, 1964.)
This design was reproduced on Noritake China (plates and vases) manufactured between 1911 and 1918. For references see Joan Van Patten, The Collector's Encyclopedia of Nippon Porcelain (Paducah, KY: Collector Books, 1979), pl. 107 p.123, see also Van Patten, The Collector's Encyclopedia of Nippon Porcelain, Second Series (1982), pl. 722, p. 126, Fourth Series (1997), pp. 21-24, and Sixth Series (2001), p. 27. Lamp globes, also painted in Japan, were made into hurricane lamps by the Pittsburgh Lamp, Brass and Glass Company, circa 1908-1910.
Outing printed a number of different sized reproductions of the five "Solitude" paintings. In the Dec. 1907 issue (unpaginated, Outing Magazine Advertiser), the publishers advertised reproductions 12 x 16 inches, mounted on heavy boards 17 x 22 inches overall. A page from an advertising section torn from an unidentified magazine offered a boxed set of reproductions, 14 x 23 inches, mounted to 17 x 27 inches (Library, Delaware Art Museum, incorrectly dated August 1904).
Wyeth gave "The Hunter" to Thomas H. Blodgett (1878-1964), who from 1902-1908 was western representative in Chicago of Outing Magazine. In 1909, Blodgett came to New York as president of the Outing Publishing Company. (See obituary, New York Times, Oct. 5, 1964.)
This design was reproduced on Noritake China (plates and vases) manufactured between 1911 and 1918. For references see Joan Van Patten, The Collector's Encyclopedia of Nippon Porcelain (Paducah, KY: Collector Books, 1979), pl. 107 p.123, see also Van Patten, The Collector's Encyclopedia of Nippon Porcelain, Second Series (1982), pl. 722, p. 126, Fourth Series (1997), pp. 21-24, and Sixth Series (2001), p. 27. Lamp globes, also painted in Japan, were made into hurricane lamps by the Pittsburgh Lamp, Brass and Glass Company, circa 1908-1910.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting