Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Spring. "Song"
Alternate Title(s):Spring
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1909
Dimensions:
33 3/4 × 30 1/4 in. (85.7 × 76.8 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.111
Research Number: NCW: 111
InscribedLower left: N. C. WYETH / 1909
ProvenanceThe artist, and sold during or immediately after Philadelphia, PA, 1910 exhibition; (?); (Frank S. Schwarz & Son, Philadelphia, ca. 1971-1973)
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1910, no. 792 p. 50, as "Spring"; Philadelphia, PA, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, "106th Annual Exhibition," Feb. 5 - March 26, 1911, no. 563 p. 49, as "Spring"; Greenville, SC, 1974, no. 72; Greenville, DE, 1995
References
George Bird Grinnell, Blackfeet Indian Stories (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913), cover label and dust cover illus. in color; Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), ps. 303, 309; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 275, illus. b/w p. 62; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.283, p. 200
Curatorial RemarksAccording to a letter to his mother written in February 1909 ("Your rapid fire succession...," dated in another hand Feb. 28, 1909), Wyeth decided to write his own poems for these paintings. The letter includes rough drafts of poems for "Winter" and "Spring," and a request for his mother's opinion of the texts (WFA). It would seem that Wyeth completed his text before beginning the painting, and there is no indication when George T. Marsh's poems were substituted.
Wyeth felt that this painting represented a distinct step in his artistic development. He wrote to his mother in May 1909, "It is realistic, and there is the Indian and his reed, the splashing brooklet and rocks, etc. But when one looks at it he forgets the realism--he is removed from the consciousness of looking at a realistic picture and thinks of nothing but the spirit of spring. Pleasant thoughts and imaginings of the charms of the spring, of the woods, of the brook, and of life fill his soul--that's what I want the picture to inspire when it is done." Wyeth was gratified that his colleagues Alan True, Percy Ivory, and George Harding all considered this "way and beyond my past work, (pronouncing) Spring...almost entirely in the light of painting." (Betsy James Wyeth, ed., ps. 303 and 309)
Wyeth felt that this painting represented a distinct step in his artistic development. He wrote to his mother in May 1909, "It is realistic, and there is the Indian and his reed, the splashing brooklet and rocks, etc. But when one looks at it he forgets the realism--he is removed from the consciousness of looking at a realistic picture and thinks of nothing but the spirit of spring. Pleasant thoughts and imaginings of the charms of the spring, of the woods, of the brook, and of life fill his soul--that's what I want the picture to inspire when it is done." Wyeth was gratified that his colleagues Alan True, Percy Ivory, and George Harding all considered this "way and beyond my past work, (pronouncing) Spring...almost entirely in the light of painting." (Betsy James Wyeth, ed., ps. 303 and 309)
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:J. Abraham, 10/2002