Artist:

N.C. Wyeth

(American, 1882 - 1945)

Summer Sky

Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: ca. 1911 / 1912
Dimensions:
15 × 20 1/16 in. (38.1 × 51 cm)
The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.935
Research Number: NCW: 935
InscribedLower left: N. C. W.; along stretcher in black block letters: SUMMER SKY 19
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1912(1), no. 17, "Summer Sky"; Chadds Ford, PA, Brandywine River Museum, "N. C. Wyeth and The Philadelphia Sketch Club," March 20 - May 23, 2010;
References Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), L.60, p. 718
Curatorial RemarksIn the course of conservation treatment in 2005, Joyce Hill Stoner felt that "shadowy lines" on an x-radiograph of the canvas indicated that Wyeth may have painted over another image. The x-radiograph was not clear enough to identify the underpainting; the size of the canvas suggests the original work might have been one of the head- or tailpieces for The Pike County Ballads, but green pigment along the edge at the top of the present image might mean the under painting was an earlier landscape.
The painting is marked on a stretcher member with the same notation found on other paintings exhibited at the Sketch Club in 1912. There must have been substitutions after the printing of the brochure, because the numbers in the brochure and the numbers found on the stretchers are off by one or two consecutive numbers.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 11/2002