Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern and defiant
Alternate Title(s):Stern and Defiant; The Indian Defies the Pilgrims; The Indians Issue Defiance
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1920
Dimensions:
41 × 30 1/8 in. (104.1 × 76.5 cm)
Collection of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Missouri.
Purchased with funds donated by the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation
Accession number: SUPP2000.1130
Research Number: NCW: 1130
Inscribedlabel adhered to reverse of canvas (until conservation treatment, 1980): This drawing is the property of the Houghton Mifflin Company and is to be returned to The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. Value: $500.
ProvenanceStandish Lounge, Hotel Roosevelt , New York, NY, 1924; (?); (Fenn Galleries, Ltd., Santa Fe, NM, 1979, as "Stern and Defiant")
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1921, as "The Indian Defies the Pilgrims"
References
"The Wooing of Priscilla," The Mentor, vol. 14, no. 6 (July 1926), p. 44 as "The Indians Issue Defiance"; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 211, 266, illustration in b/w p. 102; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.801, p. 399
Curatorial RemarksThe Brandywine River Museum of Art owns the copy of Houghton Mifflin's 1913 edition of The Courtship of Miles Standish, Elizabeth and other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (NCWS.95.211) which NCW read and marked as he chose his illustrative program. The copy is illustrated with engravings after an unidentified artist which seem to have furnished Wyeth with some inspiration.
"..."The Heart of the Puritan" compiled by Miss Hanscom of Smith College is a valuable collection of letters and journals which will add greatly to my mental background in working up the Miles Standish pictures." (NCW to "Babe," Jan. 14, 1920, WFA)
In an undated letter to Houghton Mifflin editor Roger L. Scaife, Wyeth wrote, "I made the worst bone-headed mistake of my career by doing the council scene in daylight! Showing the interior of the old fort--really a pretty good picture as my pictures run, and then discovered that it all happened in the night!" On April 28, 1920, Scaife responded, "What a frightful break in business efficiency you made in making the council scene in the day light. What a splendid literary note to show the acuracy and painstaking quality of your work" (both letters, Houghton Mifflin Archives, bMS Am 1925 (1962), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University).
"..."The Heart of the Puritan" compiled by Miss Hanscom of Smith College is a valuable collection of letters and journals which will add greatly to my mental background in working up the Miles Standish pictures." (NCW to "Babe," Jan. 14, 1920, WFA)
In an undated letter to Houghton Mifflin editor Roger L. Scaife, Wyeth wrote, "I made the worst bone-headed mistake of my career by doing the council scene in daylight! Showing the interior of the old fort--really a pretty good picture as my pictures run, and then discovered that it all happened in the night!" On April 28, 1920, Scaife responded, "What a frightful break in business efficiency you made in making the council scene in the day light. What a splendid literary note to show the acuracy and painstaking quality of your work" (both letters, Houghton Mifflin Archives, bMS Am 1925 (1962), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:photography directly from painting
Photo Credit: