Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Burial
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1906
Dimensions:
24 × 38 in. (61 × 96.5 cm)
Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Accession number: SUPP2000.318
Research Number: NCW: 318
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH (underlined) / -06- / Copyrighted; Written on reverse of canvas in script: Paid / Aug.10/06 Solitude Series / The Burial
ProvenanceCollection of Philip Gillette Cole to 1941; Estate of Philip Gillette Cole, 1941 -1944; Collection of Thomas Gilcrease and Gilcrease Foundation, Tulsa, OK, 1944 - 1955
Exhibition HistoryChadds Ford, PA, 1990(2), illus. b/w p. 5, cat. no. 25 on p. 82
References
Gilcrease Gazette, vol. XII, no. 3 (May 1975), illus. b/w p. 1; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.165, p. 159
Curatorial RemarksThis composition was worked out in August, 1904 (see NCW 61), and the artist may have prepared to begin painting the next month. (see NCW to ANW, dated Sept. 11, 1904, Wyeth Family Archives: "Just now I am making preparations and getting together material for my Indian Painting "The Happy Hunting Grounds." The canoe has been and will be its weight in gold for this picture.") A trip to Needham and a trip west seem to have delayed the start. In letters of March 1906, the picture is referred to as "the Chief's Burial" or simply "The Burial." "Mr. Pyle is plum daffy over my picture of the "Burial"...(he wants me) to paint it big in size for exhibition. He "guarantees" that it will win me medals and admission into the National Academy..." (letters NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, "Dear Mama, To-day is bright and cold...", and NCW to HZW "Dear Mama, Well, it's about 10 o'clock...," both undated but in March 1906 by context, Wyeth Family Archives).
According to archival material at the Gilcrease Museum, the painting is listed in the Philip Gillette Cole inventory with a note saying that it hung on the staircase between the first and second floors at "Zeeview," Cole's Tarrytown, NY, estate. Cole was a major collector of Western paintings in the 1920s and 30s and his name appears in N. C. Wyeth's address book (Brandywine River Museum, NCWS.95.1174).
According to archival material at the Gilcrease Museum, the painting is listed in the Philip Gillette Cole inventory with a note saying that it hung on the staircase between the first and second floors at "Zeeview," Cole's Tarrytown, NY, estate. Cole was a major collector of Western paintings in the 1920s and 30s and his name appears in N. C. Wyeth's address book (Brandywine River Museum, NCWS.95.1174).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1. Transparency directly from painting 2. Reverse of canvas
Photo Credit:1. Brandywine River Museum photography files 2. (Digital image by Tobie Anne Cunningham, Registrar, Gilcrease Museum)