Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
"Peculiarsome" Abe
Medium: Oil on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: ca. 1939
Dimensions:
27 3/4 × 19 1/8 in. (70.5 × 48.6 cm)
The Free Library of Philadelphia, Childrens Literature Research Collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.210
Research Number: NCW: 210
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH (underlined); on reverse, Renaissance Panel label no. 830, dated 10/27/(19)39; painted on reverse: PECULIARSOME ABE / P. 704
ProvenanceThe artist; anonymous donor to present collection, 1941
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1941(2)
References
N. C. Wyeth, Income tax notes for 1940 (unpublished, Brandywine River Museum); Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 208, color illus. p. 138; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1263, p. 570, 571
Curatorial RemarksThe Brandywine River Museum holds an earlier, unillustrated edition of this book that the artist used to plan his pictures (NCWS.95.595). The image was used as an illustration for an excerpt from "Abe Lincoln Grows Up" by Carl Sandburg.
In his income tax notes for 1940, Wyeth recorded "a book on Lincoln photos" as one of the expenses involved with this painting; that may be "The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln," by Frederick Hill Meserve and Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1904), still in the studio library (Brandywine River Museum, NCWS.95.692).
In his income tax notes for 1940, Wyeth recorded "a book on Lincoln photos" as one of the expenses involved with this painting; that may be "The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln," by Frederick Hill Meserve and Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1904), still in the studio library (Brandywine River Museum, NCWS.95.692).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Joseph Painter; Conservation work by Franklin Shores