Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
In a Dream I Meet General Washington
Alternate Title(s):In a Dream I Saw General Washington; Washington at Brandywine
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1930
Dimensions:
72 3/8 × 79 in. (183.8 × 200.7 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Purchased with funds given in memory of George T. Weymouth, 1991
Accession number: 91.9
Label Copy:
In 1930, atop scaffolding to complete a mural of George Washington for a bank in Trenton, New Jersey, N.C. Wyeth lost his balance and almost fell 30 feet to the marble floor. The shock resulted in a dream that haunted him until he committed his vision to canvas. In that dream, Wyeth watched the Battle of Brandywine unfold before him as Washington narrated. The site of the battle is not far from Wyeth’s studio, and with his lifelong love of history he was familiar with details of the encounter.
To dispel the dream which he described as "amazingly vivid," Wyeth painted himself on shaky scaffolding in the foreground, palette and brushes in hand, speaking to Washington. British and American troops march across an autumnal colored landscape, and Major General Lafayette appears in the woods on the left. In the lower left corner, young Andrew Wyeth, accompanied by his dog, sits sketching as he often did in his father’s studio.
Wyeth wrote to his brother, "This is the painting that I am certain excels anything done to date." Although the painting was based on a dream, Wyeth felt, "this fact in no way interferes with its abstract attraction as a painting to be engaged for color, pattern, technique and intriguing interest." His palette of complementary colors, the sinuous forms of the hills and clouds, and the incorporation of the black lines of the preparatory drawing into the final composition are all typical of Wyeth’s exploration with modernist painting techniques in the years 1925 to 1935.
In 1930, atop scaffolding to complete a mural of George Washington for a bank in Trenton, New Jersey, N.C. Wyeth lost his balance and almost fell 30 feet to the marble floor. The shock resulted in a dream that haunted him until he committed his vision to canvas. In that dream, Wyeth watched the Battle of Brandywine unfold before him as Washington narrated. The site of the battle is not far from Wyeth’s studio, and with his lifelong love of history he was familiar with details of the encounter.
To dispel the dream which he described as "amazingly vivid," Wyeth painted himself on shaky scaffolding in the foreground, palette and brushes in hand, speaking to Washington. British and American troops march across an autumnal colored landscape, and Major General Lafayette appears in the woods on the left. In the lower left corner, young Andrew Wyeth, accompanied by his dog, sits sketching as he often did in his father’s studio.
Wyeth wrote to his brother, "This is the painting that I am certain excels anything done to date." Although the painting was based on a dream, Wyeth felt, "this fact in no way interferes with its abstract attraction as a painting to be engaged for color, pattern, technique and intriguing interest." His palette of complementary colors, the sinuous forms of the hills and clouds, and the incorporation of the black lines of the preparatory drawing into the final composition are all typical of Wyeth’s exploration with modernist painting techniques in the years 1925 to 1935.
Research Number: NCW: 201
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH / 1930; on reverse, charcoal sketches on canvas; label attached to stretcher (in N. C. Wyeth's hand): In a Dream I Meet / General Washington / Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Richmond, Virginia / First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Painting 1938; label attached to stretcher (in N. C. Wyeth's hand): Corcoran Gallery of Art 1932-33 / Thirteenth Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Painting; label attached to stretcher: Brandywine River Museum, Not for Publication
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth to at least 1950; descended in family
Exhibition HistoryWilmington, DE, 1931, no. 18; West Chester, PA, 1932, no. 50, as "In A Dream I Saw General Washington" (winner of 2nd place award in oil painting category); Washington DC, 1932, no. 207 p. 79, illus. in b/w p. 108; Philadelphia, PA, 1933, no. 92, p. 18; New York, NY, 1933, illus. b/w (unpaginated); Philadelphia, PA, 1935(2); (in 1938 sent to First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, but not accepted for exhibition); Wilmington, DE, 1946, no. 3; Chadds Ford, PA, 1968, no.13; Chadds Ford, PA, 1973 (1); Chadds Ford, PA, 1976 (2), illus. in sepia on brochure cover; Woodberry Forest, VA, Walker Center Gallery, Woodberry Forest School, "Along the Brandywine, An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture," May 19-June 3, 1979; Chadds Ford PA, 1982, no.19; New York, NY, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, "Picturing History: American Painting, 1775-1925," (organized by Fraunces Tavern Museum) Sept. 28 - Nov. 27, 1993, and 3 additional venues (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Center for Fine Arts, Miami), detail illus. in color p.157, color illus. p. 174 (fig. 120); Chadds Ford, PA, 1995, no. 11, illus. b/w p. 35; Chadds Ford, PA, 1997, no numbers; Chadds Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum of Art, June 22-Sept. 15, 2019 (and Portland, ME, Portland Museum of Art, Oct. 4, 2019-Jan. 12, 2020, and Cincinnati, OH, Taft Museum, Feb. 8-May 3, 2020), "N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives," illus. p. 175
References
Roger Cooper, "Famous Artist Praises Stevenson," The Spotlight, March 13, 1931, p. 4, contains a description of the work in progress; N. C. Wyeth, "Washington in Dream Fights Battle," Philadelphia Public Ledger, April 17, 1932, p. 2 (Editorial Section) and prob. Wilmington Sunday Star (unidentified clipping, collection Delaware Art Museum); "Washington at Brandywine by N. C. Wyeth," Boston Evening Transcript, April 23, 1932; "Art Exhibition Opens To-day with Private View...," (West Chester, PA) Daily Local News, May 14, 1932, ps. 1, 2; "1932 Corcoran Biennial," The Art Digest, vol. VII, no. 5 (Dec. 1, 1932), b/w illus. p. 3; Vylla Poe Wilson, "Capital Art and Artists," The Washington Post, Dec. 4, 1932, A:3; Arthur Stanley Riggs, "The New Corcoran Biennial," Art & Archaeology, vol. XXXIV, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1933), illus. b/w p. 34; Edward Alden Jewell, "Three Winter Shows," American Magazine of Art, vol. XXVI, no. 2 (Feb. 1933), illus. b/w, p. 63; Harvey M. Watts, "The Academy Exhibition," The Philadelphia Forum, vol. 12, no. 6 (Feb. 1933), ps. 9 and 22, also b/w cover illus.; letter, Eric Knight to Paul Rotha, August 8, 1933, published in Eric Knight, Portrait of a Flying Yorkshireman, Letters from Eric Knight in the United States to Paul Rotha in England (London: Chapman & Hall, 1952), p. 37; C. H. Bonte, "That Gifted Wyeth Family Exhibiting at the Alliance," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 31, 1935, p. SO 9; Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950, " unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 77; William P. Lear, "Meet the Artist: Christian Brinton / September 17, 1870 / July 14, 1942" printed in The Chester County Artist, vol. II, no. 6 (Sept. 1953); Pete Martin, "The Wyeth Who Doesn't Paint," The (Philadelphia ) Sunday Bulletin, July 3, 1966, illus.; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 163; Elizabeth Shoumatoff, FDR's Unfinished Portrait (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 1990), p. 40; Barbara J. Metnick and William S. Ayres, "Picturing History," Antiques, vol. CXLIV, no. 5 (Nov. 1993), illus. in color p. 671; unattributed review of exhibition "Picturing History," American Art Review, vol. VI, no. 3 (June- July 1994), illus. p.152; Mary Edith Hinshaw, unpublished diary (Summer 1934) excerpted in "The Window," publication of W. H. Moring Jr., Arts Center, Asheboro, NC, vol. 1 issue 4 (Fall 1997); David Michaelis, N. C. Wyeth A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), ps. 330-332, illus. b/w p. 331; Barbara J. Mitnick, History Paintings, Highlights from the Lafayette College Art Collection (Easton, PA: Lafayette College, 2007), p. 14; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), P.33, p. 814, 815: Jon Shaw, "Andrew Wyeth and N. C. Wyeth: A Psychodynamic Perspective on Father and Son," Psychiatry, vol. 76, no. 3 (Fall 2013), p. 191; Christine B. Podmaniczky, "N. C. Wyeth, American Regionalist" in Rural Modern, American Art Beyond the City (NY: Rizzoli, 2016), p. 167, illus. in color, p. 167;
Curatorial RemarksN. C. Wyeth's property in Chadds Ford was not far from the site of the Battle of Brandywine (1777), a proximity that Wyeth, with his lifelong love of history, enjoyed. This painting was the result of an accident Wyeth had in 1930 while executing a mural of George Washington's 1789 reception in Trenton, New Jersey. Atop scaffolding to complete the mural, Wyeth lost his balance and almost fell 30 feet to the marble floor. The shock resulted in a dream that haunted him until he committed the vision to canvas. In that dream, Wyeth watched the Battle of Brandywine unfold before him as Washington narrated. The boy in the lower left corner of the picture is the artist's son Andrew.
In a letter to his brother Stimson, Wyeth wrote "This is the painting that I am certain excells (sic) anything done to date." Although the painting was based on a dream, Wyeth said, "this fact in no way interferes with its abstract attraction as a painting to be engaged for color, pattern, technic and intriguing interest." (NCW to Stimson Wyeth, Feb. 19, 1931, Wyeth Family Archives) At least one early account of the painting (Shoumatoff) states that the artist had originally painted himself on the scaffolding "clad in a nightgown." For this painting, Wyeth was awarded the Clark Prize at the 1932 Corcoran Gallery exhibition.
In a letter to his brother Stimson, Wyeth wrote "This is the painting that I am certain excells (sic) anything done to date." Although the painting was based on a dream, Wyeth said, "this fact in no way interferes with its abstract attraction as a painting to be engaged for color, pattern, technic and intriguing interest." (NCW to Stimson Wyeth, Feb. 19, 1931, Wyeth Family Archives) At least one early account of the painting (Shoumatoff) states that the artist had originally painted himself on the scaffolding "clad in a nightgown." For this painting, Wyeth was awarded the Clark Prize at the 1932 Corcoran Gallery exhibition.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:No credit on transparency