Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Custer's Last Stand
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1930
Dimensions:
40 × 50 in. (101.6 × 127 cm)
Collection of Linda L. Bean
Accession number: SUPP2000.296
Research Number: NCW: 296
InscribedLower right within image: N. C. WYETH (underlined) / 1930; lower right corner: Custer's Last Stand (all underlined) / To MARTIN PYLE (name underlined) from N. C. W.
ProvenanceThe artist; gift to Martin Pyle, Chadds Ford, PA and descended in family to 1971; (?); (Ray Petry Americana, Media, PA, 1973); S. Hallock du Pont, Jr.; (?); Private collection, Philadelphia, PA, by 5/95; (?); (Ronald Frontin, South Thomaston, ME, 1998)
Exhibition HistoryGreenville, SC, 1974, no. 35, as "Custer's Last Stand"; Chadds Ford, PA, 1976(2); Cody, WY, 1980, p. 56, illus. b/w p. 51 plate 32
References
Don Russell, "What Really Happened at Custer's Last Stand?" Art News, (Dec. 1978), p. 70; Charles Windolph, "I Fought with Custer: The Story of Sergeant Windolph, Last Survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn As Told to Frazier and Robert Hunt" (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987, reprint of Scribner's 1954 edition); Virginia Jarvis Whelan, "Two American Artists: Amos Bad Heart Bull and N. C. Wyeth," Antiques, vol. CLXIV, no. 5 (Nov. 2003), p. 134; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), C.73, p. 662; Greasy Grass, Journal of the Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association, vol. 31 (May 2015), front and back cover illustration;
Curatorial RemarksNo publication citation has been found for this image, a fact which suggests, along with the existence of another painting of similar date, vignette style, and subject (see NCW 2286), that this particular image was rejected and the composition redone to make the figure of Custer more prominent in an advertisement for Lucky Strike Cigarettes.
According to Ann Wyeth McCoy, the original owner of this painting was from a Chadds Ford family unrelated to Wyeth's teacher Howard Pyle.
According to Ann Wyeth McCoy, the original owner of this painting was from a Chadds Ford family unrelated to Wyeth's teacher Howard Pyle.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:photography directly from artwork
Photo Credit:Courtesy of the Archive of the American Illustrators Gallery, New York, NY