Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Rip Van Winkle, cover illustration
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1921
Dimensions:
49 1/2 × 36 in. (125.7 × 91.4 cm)
Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.784
Research Number: NCW: 784
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH
ProvenanceThe artist; (?); (Nicholas Wyeth, Inc., New York, NY, 1991; Collection of Robert and Carolyn Wohlsen, to 1999; (Schoonover Studios Ltd., Wilmington, DE, 1999); MBNA America, Wilmington, DE, to 2005
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1921; New York, NY, 1957, no. 86; Roanoke, VA, 1991; Japan (3 venues), American Illustrators Gallery (organizer), "The Great American Illustrators," 1993, illustration in color p. 39, no. 18, p. 125, no. 18; Lititz, PA, 1995; Chicago, IL, 1997, no. 33; Wilmington, DE, 2007; Paris, Mona Bismarck Foundation, "The Wyeths, Trois generations d'artistes americains," Nov. 10, 2011- Feb. 12, 2012, illus. in color, p. 81; Portland, OR, Portland Museum of Art, "The Wyeths: Three Generations, Works form the Bank of America Collection," Oct. 7, 2017-Jan. 28, 2018;
References
Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), ps. 85, 96; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.846, p. 416
Curatorial RemarksAndrew Nathaniel Wyeth, the artist's grandson, remembers in the early 1960s seeing in N. C. Wyeth's studio desk a watercolor sketch for the cover image of Rip Van Winkle that had been pasted over the existing cover label of a copy of The Sleeping Beauty. N. C. Wyeth no doubt "mocked up" the cover to study proportion and design concerns. That copy of The Sleeping Beauty was not catalogued as being part of the studio library in 1995/1996.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Courtesy of MBNA