Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Chadds Ford Landscape - July 1909
Alternate Title(s):Chadds Ford Summer; Early Morning
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1909
Dimensions:
25 × 30 1/4 in. (63.5 × 76.8 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wyeth, 1970
Accession number: 70.3.5
Label Copy:
The Wyeth family moved permanently to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in 1908, renting an old farm house on the north side of the main road through the village. Wyeth renovated the property’s carriage house to serve as his studio, and this was the view to the village as seen from door of the studio. His early attempts to paint under the influence of the writings of Henry David Thoreau resulted in a group of impressionist style landscape paintings, like this one, all done within steps or a short walk from his studio.
About this painting Wyeth wrote: "As I look out of the window into the blaze of the noon heat, everything looks faded and gray, as though all the life and color of the tree-foliage and grass had withdrawn itself from the scorching sun. And with the vanished color has gone the life-blood of the leaves for they rustle like paper and shiver and tremble in the hot breeze. I have started a small canvas embodying this spirit of the noon-day." (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, July 30, 1909, Wyeth Family Archives)
The Wyeth family moved permanently to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in 1908, renting an old farm house on the north side of the main road through the village. Wyeth renovated the property’s carriage house to serve as his studio, and this was the view to the village as seen from door of the studio. His early attempts to paint under the influence of the writings of Henry David Thoreau resulted in a group of impressionist style landscape paintings, like this one, all done within steps or a short walk from his studio.
About this painting Wyeth wrote: "As I look out of the window into the blaze of the noon heat, everything looks faded and gray, as though all the life and color of the tree-foliage and grass had withdrawn itself from the scorching sun. And with the vanished color has gone the life-blood of the leaves for they rustle like paper and shiver and tremble in the hot breeze. I have started a small canvas embodying this spirit of the noon-day." (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, July 30, 1909, Wyeth Family Archives)
Research Number: NCW: 45
InscribedLower right: July '09 / NCW; label on reverse: Chadds Ford Summer / by N. C. Wyeth--owned by / Betsy J. Wyeth
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Andrew and Betsy Wyeth to 1970
Exhibition HistoryHarrisburg, PA, 1965, no. 116; Canaan, NH, Cardigan Mountain School, "Art of Northern New England," Aug. 22 - 26, 1969, no. 87, as "Early Morning"; Brookings, SD, 1973, no. 7; Westmoreland County Art Association, Ligonier, PA, "Ligioner Valley Bicentennial Art Show," July 19 - August 6, 1976; Princeton, NJ, 1977, no. 7; Harrisburg, PA, "A Salute to Pennsylvania's Artistic Heritage," March 16 - May 13, 1979; Chadds Ford, PA, 1992; Chadds Ford, PA, 1997, no numbers, as "Chadds Ford Summer"; Portland, ME, 2000, no numbers, p. 56; Chadds Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum, "N. C. Wyeth and The Philadelphia Sketch Club," March 20 - May 23, 2010; Concord, MA, Concord Museum, N. C. Wyeth's Men of Concord, April 15 - September 18, 2016, ps.64, 65; Chadds Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum of Art, June 22-Sept. 15, 2019 (and Cincinnati,OH, Taft Museum, Feb. 8-May 3, 2020), "N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives," illus. p. 125
References
Brandywine River Museum, Catalogue of the Collection, 1969-1989 (Chadds Ford, PA: Brandywine Conservancy, 1991), p. 200, illustration in b/w, p. 196; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), L.34, p. 710-711
Curatorial RemarksOld records indicate that this was the view of the village from the hill above the Chadds Ford Inn, and may be the painting referred to in July 1909, "...at two I started a large landscape looking over the village from the orchard's west side...a distinct improvement in method" (NCW to HZW, "We reached home..." and dated in another hand July 1, 1909).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
On view