Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
For a long time neither of us spoke
Alternate Title(s):Byam and Tehani
Medium: Oil on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: 1940
Dimensions:
30 × 20 1/2 in. (76.2 × 52.1 cm)
Private collection, Guilford, CT
Accession number: SUPP2000.1087
Research Number: NCW: 1087
InscribedLower right: TO MY FRIEND / ED SEAL '44 / N. C. WYETH (underlined); on reverse, painted on panel: BYAM AND TEHANI / P.177 / PAINTED FOR THE STORY / OF THE / MUTINY OF(sic) THE BOUNTY; Renaissance panel label, probably dated 3/26/40, no. 886
ProvenanceThe artist; Edward J. S. Seal, Wilmington, DE, 1944; descended in family; (Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, PA, 2000)
References
Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 212; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1295, p. 583
Curatorial RemarksIn an undated letter to Little, Brown & Co. in which Wyeth laid out his vision of the pictorial program for The Bounty Trilogy, a special note was appended to the description of this image: "Byam and Tehani give me an excellent chance to picture an idyl (sic) of the South Seas. We need this note. It will be less a picture of Byam and his Tahitian nymph than of the poetic charm of the whole." The typed copy of this letter was found in the edition of Pitcairn's Island that Wyeth read and marked in preparation for this commission (NCWS.95.604, Brandywine River Museum library).
Note that the Renaissance Panel information was reported as dated 8/25/40 and numbered 816. More likely, to fit into a sequence with most of the other Bounty paintings, the date of the panel is 3/26/40 and the number 886.
Edward J. S. Seal was a photographer who took record photographs of many of N. C. Wyeth's paintings, and who also took a series of portrait photographs of the artist in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Note that the Renaissance Panel information was reported as dated 8/25/40 and numbered 816. More likely, to fit into a sequence with most of the other Bounty paintings, the date of the panel is 3/26/40 and the number 886.
Edward J. S. Seal was a photographer who took record photographs of many of N. C. Wyeth's paintings, and who also took a series of portrait photographs of the artist in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Courtesy of Newman Galleries, 10/2000