Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Sitter:
Denys McCoy
Country Gentleman, cover illustration
Alternate Title(s):On the Hay Load
Medium: Oil on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: 1944
Dimensions:
34 3/8 × 27 in. (87.3 × 68.6 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Bequest of Margaret S. Butterfield, 2005
Accession number: 2005.1
Copyright: Illustration © SEPS. Licensing by Curtis Licensing
Label Copy:
In June of 1944, N. C. Wyeth’s painting of farmers in the Brandywine Valley graced the cover of Country Gentleman, which was then America’s foremost rural agricultural magazine. An editor’s note inside explained “Chadds Ford, of Pennsylvania Revolutionary fame, sets the scene for our haymakers. That’s the historic Brandywine Creek you see in the background. It was done from N. C. Wyeth’s studio window—country he’s been painting for forty years.”
Wyeth posed his young nephew Denys McCoy on a hay-covered platform, holding reins in his hands, as a model for this painting. This is one among several covers Wyeth completed for the magazine. By the 1940s, some of the publication’s covers were photographic, while others came from leading American regionalist artists including John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton.
Wyeth posed his young nephew Denys McCoy on a hay-covered platform, holding reins in his hands, as a model for this painting. This is one among several covers Wyeth completed for the magazine. By the 1940s, some of the publication’s covers were photographic, while others came from leading American regionalist artists including John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton.
Research Number: NCW: 995
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH; on reverse of panel, Renaissance Panel label, no. 1234, date prepared 1/14/44; painted on the reverse of the panel: THIS PAINTING IS DONE IN / OIL ON GESSO GROUND / PLEASE DO NOT (underlined) / COAT WITH VASELINE / N. C. WYETH; handwritten on Renaissance Panel label: J 1404 / June 44 / cover; stamped in red on Renaissance label: (top line illegible) / 87 WEST 44TH ST. / NEW YORK MURRY HILL 2-2462
ProvenanceCountry Gentleman Magazine (Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, PA), to 1955; Collection of Margaret S. Butterfield, Cooperstown, NY
Exhibition HistoryRockland, Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, "Every Picture Tells a Story," April 27-Dec. 30, 2013;
References
"Shorts and Middlings," Country Gentleman, vol. CXIV, no. 6 (June 1944), p. 4, for background; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 257; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1313, p. 590
Curatorial RemarksIn Feb. 1944, the artist wrote, "I worked on the hayload picture until day before yesterday and pushed it as far as I could. It came out pretty well I think (a wire came in an hour ago calling the panel "a perfectly gorgeous painting" which is doubtlessly an overstatement but gratifying to hear anyway)" (NCW to Andrew Wyeth, Feb. 9, 1944, Wyeth Family Archives). Wyeth had done at least three other similar covers since 1911.
An editor's note in the magazine read: "The Cover: Chadds Ford, of Pennsylvania Revolutionary fame, sets the scene for our haymakers. That's the historic Brandywine Creek you see in the background. It was done from N. C. Wyeth's studio window--country he's been painting for forty years" (Country Gentleman, June 1944). The Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.186) of the composition drawing which was used in the transfer of the design from paper to panel.
A photograph of NCW with this painting on the easel was found tacked to the wall in Andrew Wyeth's studio.
Ann Wyeth McCoy's son Denys (b. 1938), remembers posing for this painting, standing on a hay-covered platform and holding reins in his hands (Denys McCoy to C. B. Podmaniczky, conversation 3/19/2012)
An editor's note in the magazine read: "The Cover: Chadds Ford, of Pennsylvania Revolutionary fame, sets the scene for our haymakers. That's the historic Brandywine Creek you see in the background. It was done from N. C. Wyeth's studio window--country he's been painting for forty years" (Country Gentleman, June 1944). The Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.186) of the composition drawing which was used in the transfer of the design from paper to panel.
A photograph of NCW with this painting on the easel was found tacked to the wall in Andrew Wyeth's studio.
Ann Wyeth McCoy's son Denys (b. 1938), remembers posing for this painting, standing on a hay-covered platform and holding reins in his hands (Denys McCoy to C. B. Podmaniczky, conversation 3/19/2012)
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 9/2005
On view