Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Prospector
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1906
Dimensions:
47 × 29 3/4 in. (119.4 × 75.6 cm)
Courtesy of Wells Fargo
Accession number: SUPP2000.196
Research Number: NCW: 196
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH (underlined) / -06-
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; (Brandywine Galleries, Albuquerque, NM, 1953); Lewis W. Douglas for Southern Arizona Bank and Trust, Phoenix, AZ, 1953-1975; (by corporate merger) First National Bank of Arizona; (by corporate merger) First Interstate National Bank of Arizona
Exhibition HistoryHarrisburg, PA, 1965, no. 40; Tucson, AZ, Tucson Art Center, "Western Art in Arizona Collections," Feb. 18 - March 18, 1973; Tucson, AZ, Tucson Museum of Art, "Southwest Legacy," Jan. 15 - March 25, 1976; Tucson, AZ, Tucson Museum of Art, "Arizona Collects the West," Oct. 5 - Dec. 12, 1983
References
Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 266, illus. in color p. 36; Rosemary Holusha, "The Douglas Art Collection," Arizona Highways Magazine, vol. 56, no. 11 (Nov. 1980), p. 41; James H. Duff, The Western World of N. C. Wyeth (Cody, WY: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 1982), p. 14; Kate F. Jennings, N. C. Wyeth (New York: Brompton Books Corp., Crescent Books, 1992), illus. in color, p. 33; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.137, p. 146
Curatorial RemarksThe artist reported working on this painting on June 1st, 1906: "today layed in my picture of a "prospector" for McClures. The lay-in is not as successful as some but it offers better opportunities than any picture I've started yet." This was the second of three pictures that Wyeth was completing in a rush for Howard Pyle, who had just become the art editor of McClure's Magazine.
This painting was executed in studio # 3 at the Howard Pyle Studios in Wilmington, as shown in an undated photograph of N. C. Wyeth at work in that studio (Wyeth Family Archives, and reproduced in Podmaniczky, 2008, p. 38).
This painting was executed in studio # 3 at the Howard Pyle Studios in Wilmington, as shown in an undated photograph of N. C. Wyeth at work in that studio (Wyeth Family Archives, and reproduced in Podmaniczky, 2008, p. 38).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Craig Smith, 6/2003