Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Roger Williams
Medium: Charcoal on paper
Date: ca. 1941
Dimensions:
39 1/2 x 41 in. (100.3 x 104.1 cm), approximately (extensive loss along sides and bottom)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Andrew Wyeth, 2010
Accession number: 2011.11.20
Research Number: NCW: 2632
Inscribedupper right: SKETCH / N. C. WYETH
ProvenanceThe artist; Andrew Wyeth
References
see letter dated 8/12/41, C. F. Haist of Forbes Lithograph Co. to NCW with contract attached (Wyeth Family Archives); see also 1941 income tax notes (Brandywine River Museum library)
Curatorial RemarksThis drawing is most certainly one of two itemized in an October 1941 order Wyeth received from Forbes Lithograph Mfg. Company in Boston. The order (WFA) specified one painting, "Decatur and the Pirates of Tripoli" (NCW 1491), and two drawings, "Roger Williams" and "The Minute Men at Concord." All three designs (of a contemplated six) were to be offered to the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company as a series of calendar images, perhaps under a title similar to "Fight for Freedom." The painting was completed and photographed; the two drawings were discovered in Andrew Wyeth's Chadds Ford studio in July, 2009. A note in the artist's income tax material for 1941 verifies that he was paid for the completed work. The commission was probably terminated before calendars were printed; no archival material exists at Penn Mutual to suggest they were distributed.
An outline for the calendar series is contained in "The Building of Freedom in America, A Plan for a series of six paintings for a calendar" found in Wyeth's papers and dated Aug. 5, 1941.
An outline for the calendar series is contained in "The Building of Freedom in America, A Plan for a series of six paintings for a calendar" found in Wyeth's papers and dated Aug. 5, 1941.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:digital photography directly from artwork
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer