Burying Treasure

This pirate scene was created by Andrew Wyeth from his imagination, most likely after his trip to Cat Island, South Carolina, in 1937. He painted several other pirate themes set on beaches in the late 1930s, including one that the artist described as being inspired by a trip to Florida. The settings with lush palm trees in South Carolina and Florida captivated him and are unique and distinctive in his body of work. Wyeth had been drawn to stories of adventure since he was a child, and with his siblings would play pirates by dressing up in the costumes that N. C. Wyeth collected as props for his paintings. The young Wyeth was also riveted by the work of Howard Pyle, whose pirate paintings were legendary.     

The floating, transparent layers of vivid blues and greens and the light airy brushstrokes seen here are characteristic of Wyeth’s early watercolors of the 1930s and early 40s. Wyeth’s watercolors of the Maine shoreline in these years are similar in treatment and all are reminiscent of Winslow Homer, whose work Wyeth deeply admired.