Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Too tired and weak to guide his horse, he could only hang to his saddle and trust to the beast's instinct to avoid destruction! And to spur--ever to spur--praying that he might reach help before brain and body failed together.
Alternate Title(s):The Courier; The Private; The Wounded Dispatch Bearer
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1912
Dimensions:
33 1/4 × 47 1/4 in. (84.5 × 120 cm)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Fowler
Accession number: SUPP2000.766
Research Number: NCW: 766
InscribedLower left: To (illegible) MEYER / FROM / N. C. WYETH (underlined); lower right: N. C. WYETH (underlined); on reverse: The Private
ProvenanceThe artist to (?) Meyer; [?]; (Carlson Gallery, San Francisco, CA); Private collection
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1912(1), no. 24, as "Wounded Dispatch Bearer" ; Haverhill, MA, 1913; Chadds Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum, "Romance in Conflict, N. C. Wyeth's Civil War Paintings," Jan. 22-March 20, 2011
References
"Sketch Club Will Have Special Exhibit /... /Wyeth's Illustrations," published in (Philadelphia, PA) North American, Nov. 3, 1912 (Archives of American Art mircofilm roll P55 frame 784); Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 258; Tom Brokaw, et al., One Nation Patriots and Pirates Portrayed by N. C. Wyeth and James Wyeth (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000), illus. in color, fig. 9 on p. 10; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.426, p. 256
Curatorial RemarksMost of the pictures for this commission were probably complete by May 11, 1912, when Wyeth wrote to his mother (WFA) that he had just shipped off the products of "10 days hard labor...pictures of war, of soldiers and guns, and men with hard strife-worn faces!"
During the 1912 Sketch Club exhibition, this painting was singled out in several reviews. One anonymous critic wrote, "Some of the studies for illustrations--as in the "Wounded Dispatch Bearer"... are striking examples of the vigor and power of what is practically a new school of illustrative art....The "Dispatch Bearer" is worthy of a place in any collection of contemporaneous American paintings."
During the 1912 Sketch Club exhibition, this painting was singled out in several reviews. One anonymous critic wrote, "Some of the studies for illustrations--as in the "Wounded Dispatch Bearer"... are striking examples of the vigor and power of what is practically a new school of illustrative art....The "Dispatch Bearer" is worthy of a place in any collection of contemporaneous American paintings."
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Digital photography directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Rhodes Photography, 5/2006