Image Not Available
Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
unknown (Bell Leviathan)
Medium: Medium unknown
Date: ca. 1915
Dimensions:
dimensions unavailable
concept known by archival material only
Accession number: SUPP2000.2486
Research Number: NCW: 2486
Curatorial RemarksThere is no indication that this work presently exists, yet letters suggest that it might have at one time. In July, 1915, Wyeth wrote, "This morning the Bell Telephone company called me up and I am to go to New York some time next week...to meet Jerome Bell I believe, and get his romantic story of the conception of the great lines stretched across the nation, and later put into picture form the spirit of the Creating Engineer of this stupendous business" (July 9, 1915, WFA). Later in August, "Am in the midst of my allegorical picture for the Bell Telephone. The Organization typified by a leviathan of a figure, nude, on the Hills of Parnassus--the Bell Company's Parnassus. It's coming along pretty well (NCW to Henriette Z. Wyeth, "I'm writing in the kitchen..." and dated Aug. 20, 1915 in another hand, WFA).
In "Children's Artist, A Painter and Muralist of World Renown, N. C. Wyeth Likes Best to Paint for Youth, Hopes and Dreams," (Delmarva Star, August 19, 1934, p. 12), the author mentions "on view in Boston are two decorative panels, 10 x 20 feet, for the entrance of the new building of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. These paintings are imaginative portrayals of the might of electricity through the air and an imaginative conception of the elemental forces that carry its message around the world." There is no concrete link between this description and the painting above, nor is there any evidence that two Wyeth paintings hung at the NE Tel. & Tel. building. Dean Cornwell painted murals for the 185 Franklin Street building and none of the pictures are allegorical.
In "Children's Artist, A Painter and Muralist of World Renown, N. C. Wyeth Likes Best to Paint for Youth, Hopes and Dreams," (Delmarva Star, August 19, 1934, p. 12), the author mentions "on view in Boston are two decorative panels, 10 x 20 feet, for the entrance of the new building of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. These paintings are imaginative portrayals of the might of electricity through the air and an imaginative conception of the elemental forces that carry its message around the world." There is no concrete link between this description and the painting above, nor is there any evidence that two Wyeth paintings hung at the NE Tel. & Tel. building. Dean Cornwell painted murals for the 185 Franklin Street building and none of the pictures are allegorical.