Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Building of a Ship
Alternate Title(s):Ship Building
Medium: Oil on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: ca. 1937
Dimensions:
18 1/4 × 22 5/8 in. (46.4 × 57.5 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.541
Research Number: NCW: 541
InscribedLower left: scratched into ground: N. C. WYETH (underlined) / (in paint) TO ROD WARD (Rod Ward is underlined) / 194 (?- figure is either 0 or 3); on reverse, partial Renaissance Panel label, no. 603, dated 11/26/37; attached to reverse of frame, label in NCW's handwriting: BUILDING OF THE BRIG-1840 / N C WYETH - Price (with a figure scratched out); written directly on reverse of frame: MCBETH
ProvenanceThe artist; gift to Rodman Ward
Exhibition HistoryPortland, ME, 1938; New York, NY, 1939, no. 11, as "Ship Building"; Rockland, ME, 1966, no. 70; Chadds Ford, PA, 2003
References
Robert P. T. Coffin reviews Trending Into Maine, New York Herald Tribune Books, June 19, 1938, illustration in b/w p. IX-5; Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths, The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), general reference in letter no. 604, p. 769; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 216; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1227, p. 558
Curatorial RemarksThe Building of a Ship was painted to accompany "Maine Shipbuilding and Privateers," a chapter in Trending Into Maine. It was clear from Wyeth's correspondence with Little, Brown, however, that the artist planned such an image even before he received Roberts's outline (See NCW to A.R. McIntyre of Little, Brown and Company, March 23, 1936, Kenneth Roberts Papers, Dartmouth College Library). The reproduction shows a vertical composition (consistent with the page proportions) with approximately one and one half times more sky area. For his 1939 exhibition at Macbeth Gallery, Wyeth cut the panel down to its present horizontal orientation, perhaps thinking the change made the work seem less like an illustration. A drawing in the Andrew and Betsy Wyeth collection (NCW 1453) documents the original composition and the Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.126) made from the drawing that was used in the transfer of the design from paper to panel.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1. Transparency directly from painting; 2. scan of reproduction, published in Trending Into Maine
Photo Credit:1. Rick Echelmeyer, 3/27/2001; 2. BRM staff