The Letter

Artist:

Peter Paone

(b. 1936)

The Letter

Medium: Etching and aquatint on paper
Date: 1963
Dimensions:
24 1/8 x 18 in. (61.3 x 45.7 cm.)
Accession number: 2023.13.8
Curatorial RemarksThe subject of a seated woman reading a letter is a frequent one in Western art. The moody atmosphere of the scene is created by the complex crosshatching and by the combination of etching with aquatint to achieve a rich, velvety tonal range. Peter Paone (b. 1936) considers this work to be one of his finest prints.

Peter Paone is an artist well known to the Brandywine for the exhibition Reality Reassembled: The Halloween Paintings of Peter Paone, which was presented at Brandywine in the fall of 2019. Paone has had a long and successful career working in the figurative tradition, not only in painting and drawing, but also in printmaking, a medium that he has excelled in since he began studying it as a student at John Bartram High School in Philadelphia. Paone established the print department at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught until 2009. Paone’s prints demonstrate his strengths in multimedia and his lifelong approach to storytelling that resonate with viewers through their mysterious but often poignant or dark portrayal.

On view