Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
When temptation came, and Adam and Eve fell out of the their sinless and virtueless Eden, they began to be worth while. They fell from innocence into manhood and womanhood. They fell from shiftlessness into work. They fell from a drifting irresponsibility into worry and trouble and despair, but also into ambition and courage and hope
Alternate Title(s):Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; The First Family; The First Children
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1928
Dimensions:
42 × 32 in. (106.7 × 81.3 cm)
Private collection, Chadds Ford, PA
Accession number: SUPP2000.1030
Research Number: NCW: 1030
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH (underlined)
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth to at least 9/1950; (?); (Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, PA, 1966-1972); Private collection, Pasadena, TX, and descended in family; (Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, PA, ca. 1988 - 1990); The Kelly Collection of American Illustration, 1990 - 1997; (Illustration House, New York, NY); Collection of Barbara and Edward Aster, OR; (Sotheby's, New York, NY, lot no. 173, May 27, 1999)
Exhibition HistoryWilmington, DE, 1929, no. 115, as "The First Family"; Philadelphia, PA, Philadelphia Art Alliance, date unknown, but ca. 1929; Wilmington, DE, 1930(1), no. 41, as "Cain and Abel"; Ashland, VA, Randolph-Macon College, "Howard Pyle and His Students: Works From the Kelly Collection of American Illustration," Oct. 7 - Dec. 9, 1995, no. 33, illustration in b/w (unpaginated); Abingdon, VA, 1996, as "The First Family"; Eugene, OR, University of Oregon, "N. C. Wyeth, The Art of Illustration: An Exhibition of Works by N. C. Wyeth from the Collection of Barbara and Edward Aster," Jan. 28 - Feb. 27, 1999, Paintings and Drawings checklist no. 6, illustration in color in brochure
References
"Wyeth Paintings Prove Colorful, Stong, Dramatic," (Wilmington, DE) Every Evening, March 1, 1930, p. 9; Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 23; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 258; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1073, p. 506
Curatorial RemarksCorrespondence between the artist and the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1942 (letters between Dec. 4, 1941 and Nov. 1942, Wyeth Family Archives) indicates that Wyeth sold "unrestricted second rights" to the Board for a number of his religious pictures. This picture was originally published with a bare-breasted Eve and a nude figure of the boy Cain, but Wyeth "adapted" the painting to meet the conventions of the Sunday School board by "clothing" both figures (Herman F. Burns, Art Director, Boardman Press of the Sunday School Board, to NCW, July 23, 1942, Wyeth Family Archives). The figure of Eve was returned to its original appearance after 1974, but the figure of Cain still "wears" a ragged loin cloth.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1. Transparency directly fom painting; 2. image as originally painted and reproduced in Good Housekeeping Magazine, with barebreasted figure of Eve and nude figure of boy; 3. painting as altered by artist for inclusion in material published by Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention
Photo Credit:1. Courtesy of Sotheby's, 4/1999; 2. from page 35, Good Housekeeping Magazine, vol. LXXXVIII, no. 1 (Jan. 1929); 3. Archival photograph, Brandywine River Museum library, N. C. Wyeth collection