Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Men of Concord, endpaper illustration
Alternate Title(s):The Fox; Fox in the Snow; Thoreau and the Fox
Medium: Oil on hardboard (probably Renaissance Panel)
Date: 1935
Dimensions:
28 × 41 in. (71.1 × 104.1 cm)
Courtesy of The Arkell Museum at Canajoharie
© The Arkell Museum at Canajoharie
Accession number: SUPP2000.919
Research Number: NCW: 919
InscribedPainted on reverse of panel: NOTICE (underlined) / DO NOT (underlined), UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE / REMOVE THIS PANEL FROM / ITS FRAME. / APPLY NO (underlined) VASELINE, VARN (missing) / OR OTHER APPLICATIONS (missing) / THIS PAINTING / N C WYETH; label adhered to panel: PAINTINGS BY AMERICAN ARTISTS / WILLIAM MACBETH / 11 EAST 57TH STREET NEW YORK / FOX IN THE SNOW / BY / N. C. WYETH
Provenance(Macbeth Gallery, New York, NY, 1940); Bartlett Arkell for Canajoharie (NY) Public Library
Exhibition HistoryWest Chester, PA, 1937, no. 57, as "The Fox"; New York, NY, 1939, no. 1, as "Fox in the Snow"; Wilmington, DE, 1946, no. 33, as "Thoreau and the Fox"; New York, NY, 1946, no. 4, as "Thoreau and the Fox"; Harrisburg, PA, 1965, no. 65, as "Thoreau and the Fox"; Rockland, ME, 1966, no. 65, as "Thoreau and the Fox," illustration in b/w; Concord, MA, Concord Museum, N. C. Wyeth's Men of Concord, April 15 - September 18, 2016, ps. 54, 55;
References
"Franz de Merlier is Awarded First Place At Annual Art Exhibit," Daily Local News (West Chester, PA) May 21, 1937; N. C. Wyeth, Income tax notes for 1939 (unpublished, Brandywine River Museum library); Royal Cortissoz, "N. C. Wyeth," New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 10, 1939, 6: p. 8; Henry Seidel Canby, Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1939, dust-jacket illustration and illustration f. p. 310; "N. C. Wyeth-A Veteran Illustrator: In Memoriam," Art News, vol. XLIV, no. 19 (Jan. 15, 1946), illustration in b/w p. 14; Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths, The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), reproduced as endpapers; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 220; David Michaelis, N. C. Wyeth, A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 355; Leslie Perrin Wilson, "N. C. Wyeth, Thoreau and Men of Concord," The Concord Saunterer, New Series vol. 8 (2000), p. 83; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1203, p. 546-547
Curatorial RemarksThis is a particularly important painting for the artist, a tribute to two men who were most influential in his life. The figure in the distance is Henry David Thoreau, whose writings shaped some of Wyeth's most fundamental beliefs. Wyeth included this painting in his exhibition held at Macbeth Gallery in 1939; it was the only painting in the exhibition that did not depict a Maine subject. Wyeth greatly admired Winslow Homer and would have known Homer's "Fox Hunt" of 1893 which entered the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1894. In a letter held by the Concord Free Public Library, Wyeth expresses his opinion that this image is "unquestionably the most significant one of the series" (quoted in Wilson, above).
The back of the panel is painted a deep red color and there is an area of adhesive residue where a label would have been applied, clues that this is a Renaissance Panel manufactured by the F. Weber Company of Philadelphia. The artist's income tax notes for 1939 reveal that Wyeth cut the panel down for the Macbeth Gallery exhibition, which probably accounts for the missing portions of the inscriptions on the reverse of the panel.
On the reverse of the reproduction of this painting in Ann Wyeth McCoy's copy of the Canby Thoreau (cited above), the artist wrote in 1939, "It is singularly gratifying to me that this picture was selected for this remarkable book about our favorite author...." (Copy privately owned as of 2006).
NCW 205 is a composition drawing for the work, and the Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.102) of the drawing used in the transfer of the design from paper to panel.
The back of the panel is painted a deep red color and there is an area of adhesive residue where a label would have been applied, clues that this is a Renaissance Panel manufactured by the F. Weber Company of Philadelphia. The artist's income tax notes for 1939 reveal that Wyeth cut the panel down for the Macbeth Gallery exhibition, which probably accounts for the missing portions of the inscriptions on the reverse of the panel.
On the reverse of the reproduction of this painting in Ann Wyeth McCoy's copy of the Canby Thoreau (cited above), the artist wrote in 1939, "It is singularly gratifying to me that this picture was selected for this remarkable book about our favorite author...." (Copy privately owned as of 2006).
NCW 205 is a composition drawing for the work, and the Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.102) of the drawing used in the transfer of the design from paper to panel.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Digital photography directly from painting