Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Indian Longthought
"All night they drum, and never cease until the Sun, the Bloody Hunter, sets the hills on fire"
Alternate Title(s):A settler listens to the warning of a friendly Indian
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1928
Dimensions:
40 1/8 × 32 1/8 in. (101.9 × 81.6 cm)
Collection of Linda L. Bean
Accession number: SUPP2000.1714
Research Number: NCW: 1714
InscribedLower right: W (with two small dots under points of W); written on verso of canvas in black: 5 (circled) THE INDIAN / LONG THOUGHT / 49343 / ---5 3/8---- / 150 Se / 4 color; written in white chalk on upper tacking edge: 75; written on upper left of canvas verso: 75; on proper left tacking edge, in black crayon: Y95460; label attached to top stretcher bar at left: (typewritten) THE INDIAN LONGTHOUGHT / Drawn by N. C. Wyeth for DRUMS by James Boyd / Price $550;
ProvenanceThe artist; (?); (J. N. Bartfield Galleries, New York, NY, 1965); (?); (American Illustrators Gallery, New York, NY, 1997)
Exhibition HistoryGreenville, DE, 1995, exhibition brochure illustration in color, no numbers
References
William Chauncy Langdon, Everyday Things in American Life, 1607-1776 (New York: Scribner's, 1937), b/w illus. f. p. 118, as "A settler listens to the warning of a friendly Indian"; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 198; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1062, p. 501
Curatorial RemarksThe Brandywine River Museum holds Scribner's unillustrated 1925 edition of Drums which the artist read in preparation for this commission and marked with notes throughout and on the endsheets (NCWS.95.239).
Letters dated by the artist himself indicate that most of the paintings for Drums were completed in Jan. and Feb. of 1928 (Wyeth Family Archives). A letter, however, from Wyeth to James Boyd, dated in Wyeth's hand Jan. 5, 1928, indicates that by that date Boyd had already seen some proofs of the illustrations that included pictures of Squire Fraser. Boyd apparently wanted to make sure that Fraser's beard would be a tawny brown in the reproductions and Wyeth promised to make the color corrections (James Boyd Papers, no. 3610, Southern Historical Collection, Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
In the first edition the title under the image and in the illustration list in the front of the book is The Indian Longthought, even though the character is referred to as "Long Thought" in the text.
Letters dated by the artist himself indicate that most of the paintings for Drums were completed in Jan. and Feb. of 1928 (Wyeth Family Archives). A letter, however, from Wyeth to James Boyd, dated in Wyeth's hand Jan. 5, 1928, indicates that by that date Boyd had already seen some proofs of the illustrations that included pictures of Squire Fraser. Boyd apparently wanted to make sure that Fraser's beard would be a tawny brown in the reproductions and Wyeth promised to make the color corrections (James Boyd Papers, no. 3610, Southern Historical Collection, Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
In the first edition the title under the image and in the illustration list in the front of the book is The Indian Longthought, even though the character is referred to as "Long Thought" in the text.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:photography directly from artwork
Photo Credit:Courtesy the Archive of the American Illustrators Gallery, NYC