Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Untitled (Chadds Ford landscape)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1903
Dimensions:
24 1/8 × 16 1/16 in. (61.3 × 40.8 cm)
Accession number: 2019.7
Label Copy:
In this very early depiction of Chadds Ford, N. C. Wyeth examines the landscape around his new surroundings. Though Wyeth settled in nearby Wilmington, Delaware, Chadds Ford was the location of famed illustrator Howard Pyle’s summer school, which Wyeth attended. Having only recently moved from Needham, Massachusetts, he painted this work to send back home to his parents to show them his new environs. After Wyeth married Carolyn Bockius, the couple moved to Chadds Ford in 1908, where the Wyeths would eventually build a home and raise their family.
Research Number: NCW: 2460
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH / CHADDS FORD 1903; painted on the reverse, on canvas lining: Presented to / Merianne (sic) Hall / June 6, 1965 / by Constance ... / and Stimson Wyeth
ProvenanceThe artist; sent to his family in Needham, MA, 1903; Constance and Stimson Wyeth to 1965; gift to Marianne Hall, 1965, and descended in family to 2019; [Greenville, DE, Somerville Manning Gallery, 2019];
Exhibition HistoryGreenville, DE, Somerville Manning Gallery, "N. C. Wyeth: Painter and Illustrator," June 14-Sept. 14, 2019;
References
Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), L.3, p. 703
Curatorial RemarksAccording to oral history, this view of Chadds Ford was painted to show Stimson Wyeth the countryside, presumably in the spring or summer of 1903. Andrew Wyeth has identifed the view as that portion of Harvey's Run from Turner's mill to Chadds Ford. The signature on the front is not consistent sylistically with the artist's early signatures and must have been added at a later date. The canvas has been lined.
"Now I've packed up 2 or 3 pictures I've made since I've been here and you'll probably receive them in the course of 3 or 4 days C.O.D. (...) I've come out in the country two or three weeks before the rest (...) and made them during that time (...).The willow is an unsuccessful study for a large one which I am at work on now, 2 ft. by 3 ft. in size. The other two are the landscapes (sketches) Mr. P. has not seen" (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, June 25, 1903, Wyeth Family Archives).
"Now I've packed up 2 or 3 pictures I've made since I've been here and you'll probably receive them in the course of 3 or 4 days C.O.D. (...) I've come out in the country two or three weeks before the rest (...) and made them during that time (...).The willow is an unsuccessful study for a large one which I am at work on now, 2 ft. by 3 ft. in size. The other two are the landscapes (sketches) Mr. P. has not seen" (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, June 25, 1903, Wyeth Family Archives).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1.Transparency directly from painting; detail of signature; detail of inscription on reverse of canvas
Photo Credit:1. Courtesy of Nan Chisholm Fine Art, New York
On view