Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Autumn. "Waiting"
Alternate Title(s):Autumn
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1909
Dimensions:
33 1/2 × 29 1/2 in. (85.1 × 74.9 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.208
Research Number: NCW: 208
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH / 09; lower right: N. C. WYETH (underlined) / 09
ProvenanceThe artist, and sold during Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts exhibition Nov. 1910
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1910, no. 800 p. 51, as "Autumn"; Greenville, SC, 1974, no. 6, as "Autumn"; Chadds Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum, "Harvest," Sept. 6 - Nov. 24, 1974
References
"Water Color Show To Close Today," (Philadelphia) Press, Dec. 18, 1910, includes list of paintings sold during exhibition (AAA film, roll #55, frame 331); Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 275, illus. b/w p. 62; David Michaelis, N. C. Wyeth, A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 232; Erin R. Corrales-Diaz, "The Indian In His Solitude, N. C. Wyeth's Images of Native Americans," Nineteenth Century, Magazine of the Victorian Society in America, vol. 28, no. 2 (Fall 2008), p. 11; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.285, p. 201
Curatorial Remarks"I'm all up in the air...over a new scheme I am about to submit to Scribner's. I believe there is an unlimited opportunity in the way of "decorative-paintings" using that material I am so much interested in--the "primitive Indian." I have in mind four subjects, "Spring," "Summer," "Autumn," and "Winter," all symbolically representing the seasons, ie carrying the spirit of the season as it were. I've got very vague but bully (underlined) ideas for them and shall paint them very large, and will exhibit them, of course provided that some publisher will back me up and pay me enough for the right of reproduction. By exhibiting them, they may suggest to some architect the idea that such decorations would be appropriate in a library or capitol or some public building. If I could land a big commission like that, t'would mean wonders to me" (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, "T'was a funny thing--...," dated in another hand Nov. 25, 1908, Wyeth Family Archives). This was the first the four "Seasons" that Wyeth painted, and one of the images he adapted for the Hotel Utica decorations.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Brandywine River Museum photography file