Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Decorations for Grill Room, Hotel Utica
Alternate Title(s):Hotel Utica murals
Medium: Oil on canvas, adhered to plaster walls
Date: 1912
Dimensions:
dimensions unavailable
Paintings destroyed by 1933
Accession number: SUPP2000.1481
Research Number: NCW: 1481
ProvenanceCommissioned by Johnson Brothers, hotel developers, for Hotel Utica, Utica, NY
References
"Exhibit of Wyeth Paintings Opens at Institute Today," Utica Daily Press, March 12, 1938, p. 14; Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths, The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), ps. 389, 404; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals. New York: Crown Publishers, 1972, p. 58, 157, 159, illus. b/w p. 160; Jonas Kovar, "The Mystery of the Murals," (Utica) Sunday Observer-Dispatch, March 18, 1973, p. 1E; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), M.1
Curatorial RemarksThe developer for the Hotel Utica project was Johnson Brothers. In a letter to his mother dated in another hand March 30, 1911, "It seems an age...," Wyeth wrote "Maxfield Parrish and Remington did other work for him (Delos Johnson). I think he is really after some quality" (WFA).;The two major pictures derived from images the artist had painted earlier for Scribner's Magazine (see "Autumn," NCW 208 and "Summer," NCW 92); according to a photograph showing the murals in situ, each picture was enlarged by additional sections to either side. The decorations, as Wyeth called them, were painted in his Chadds Ford studio and then shipped to Utica. Wyeth traveled there in late February, 1912, to adhere the canvases to the walls. He wrote to his wife, "The pictures are beautifully located, and I am wild to see them in place. The alcoves are set very deep and quite high with wonderful chances of lighting etc." (Wyeth Family Archives, dated in another hand Feb. 20, 1912, dated by NCW "Tuesday morning / 7.15----"). A note in the artist's hand in a scrapbook found in the studio describes the pictures as "panels about / 8 x 10 feet" (Brandywine River Museum library, N. C. Wyeth collections, scrapbook B).
The paintings were destroyed by December 1933 (NCW to Robert Treman, Dec. 7, 1933, Treman correspondence, privately held but copies at Brandywine River Museum). A friend of the artist, who later commissioned Wyeth to reproduce one of the images, wrote, "I first saw (the mural) on way way to Newfoundland in 1914 and for years tried to buy it. However, when they attempted to take it down, the whole wall fell apart and the picture was completely lost" (Robert Treman correspondence).
The paintings were destroyed by December 1933 (NCW to Robert Treman, Dec. 7, 1933, Treman correspondence, privately held but copies at Brandywine River Museum). A friend of the artist, who later commissioned Wyeth to reproduce one of the images, wrote, "I first saw (the mural) on way way to Newfoundland in 1914 and for years tried to buy it. However, when they attempted to take it down, the whole wall fell apart and the picture was completely lost" (Robert Treman correspondence).
Photo Credit:3. in situ photograph, Detroit Publishing Company, from the files of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York