Artist:

N.C. Wyeth

(American, 1882 - 1945)

Our Valley

Alternate Title(s):Kuerner's Farm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: ca. 1932 / 1934
Dimensions:
60 × 72 in. (152.4 × 182.9 cm)
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on loan at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Accession number: SUPP2000.1031
Research Number: NCW: 1031
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH (underlined)
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth; (Andrew Crispo Gallery, NY, 1979)
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1935(2), as "Our Valley"; New York, NY, Andrew Crispo Gallery, "20th Century American Painting and Sculpture," 1979; [Washington, DC, International Exhibitions Foundation], "American Masters, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection," circulating 1984-1986, no. 103, illustration in color
References "Wyeths Hold One-Family Exhibition," Philadelphia Record, March 31, 1935, 4: p. 6; C. H. Bonte, "That Gifted Wyeth Family Exhibiting at the Alliance," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 31, 1935, p. SO 9; Richard Layton , "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 77; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), L.173, p. 755; Christine B. Podmaniczky, "N. C. Wyeth, American Regionalist" in Rural Modern, American Art Beyond the City (NY: Rizzoli, 2016), p. 167, illus. in color, p. 167;
Curatorial RemarksThe composition of this work and the fanciful treatment of the landscape features suggest the artist's Walden Pond Revisited (NCW 759) of 1932 / 1933. Between 1928 and 1934 the artist experimented with modernist styles in his illustrations for the Odyssey (published 1929) and in his landscape work.
Correspondence between the artist and the Art Alliance regarding the 1935 exhibition reveals that this was one of two paintings out of the 20 exhibited which Wyeth priced at $1,500, when the rest were listed as $1,000 or less (papers of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Special Collections, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania).
A photograph in the Wyeth Family Archives shows the painting hanging in the living room of Peter and Henriette Wyeth Hurd, when the Hurds lived in the Murphy Road schoolhouse, circa 1938. (The date of the photo, of Henriette, Peter Wyeth and Ann Carol Hurd, is based on the age of Ann Carol.)
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:© Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection