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THBAndrew Newell Wyeth (1917-2009) Terns on Little Green Island
About Seller
65 Sharp Street
Hingham, MA 02043
United States
Copley Fine Art Auctions is the world's leading American sporting art auction company. Located in Hingham, MA, Copley specializes in antique decoys and 19th- and 20th-century American, sporting, and wildlife paintings. Principal Stephen O'Brien Jr., a fourth-generation sportsman with a refined colle...Read more
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About Auction
LiveJul 24, 2016 - Jul 25, 2016
Copley Fine Art Auctions cinnie@copleyart.com
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- Lot Description
Andrew Newell Wyeth (1917-2009)
Terns on Little Green Island, 1940
watercolor, 13 by 19 1/2 in.
inscribed and signed "For Bess with warmest greetings Betsy & Andy" lower left
Andrew Newell Wyeth was born in 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, to Carolyn Bockius Wyeth and the well-known American artist N.C. Wyeth. Andrew was the youngest of five siblings, and after years of home tutoring and art instruction from his father, Wyeth achieved his own extraordinary fame and success for his paintings. Wyeth drew heavily from his personal experience for the subjects of his works, focusing intensely on the individuals and environments around him and depicting them in the realist tradition. Two families and two locations influenced him in particular: the Kuerners in Pennsylvania and the Olsons in Maine.
Wyeth's paintings of Maine lent the artist his earliest commercial success. He recalled, "When I was eighteen or nineteen [in 1937], he [N.C. Wyeth] showed some of my watercolors, primarily of Maine, to William Macbeth who had the only gallery in New York that exclusively handled American paintings. And Macbeth put on an exhibition and the show was a big success. Sold out.
Wyeth also noted, "I loved the works of Winslow Homer, his watercolors...which I studied intently so I could assimilate his various watercolor technique. The fast-drying quality of watercolor compelled Wyeth to paint quickly. Beth Venn, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Newark Museum in New Jersey, writes, "It is Wyeth's work in watercolor that most clearly demonstrates the astonishing depth and range of his technical and expressive capacity.
This 1940 watercolor titled "Terns on Little Green Island" depicts a lobsterman, four pot buoys in the foreground of a small Maine coastal island, and a number of darting terns in the sky. It was painted during a time of experimentation when Wyeth was exploring the outlying islands during the summer with a rowboat and a friend. The vibrant colors Wyeth observed on the island are exhibited in depths of blues, purples, greens, and reds. The vibrancy and active brushstrokes attest to the robust experimentation of the young artist.
In 1940 Wyeth married Betsy James, and the painting is inscribed "For Bess from the newlywed couple. Mrs. Raymond W. Gowdy, nee Bess Battey, was the daughter of Herbert Verner Battey, an attorney and public servant in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Mrs. Gowdy was a musician and lived in Connecticut and Rockland, Maine.
The careful observation and technical virtuosity on display in Terns on Little Green Island make this work a classic Maine scene by one of America's best-known artists.
Wyeth's works can be found in major museum collections across the country, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 and died in 2009 at the age of ninety-one.
This watercolor will be included in Betsy James Wyeth's forthcoming catalogue raisonní© of the artist's work.
Exhibited: New York, New York, "Drawings, Pastels and Watercolors. An Exhibition of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Works on Paper," Wildenstein & Co., Inc, March 1- April 30, 1995, no. 41. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "US Artists 33rd Street Armory - 2006, October 20 - October 22, 2006 Palm Beach, Florida, "Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show,February 16 - February 20, 2007
Literature: Christie's, "Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture," New York, NY, 2002, p. 87, lot 54, illustrated.
"Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth: Kuerners and Olsons, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New York, NY, Autumn 1976, Volume XXXIV, Number 2, pp. 13-17, 22, 165.
Beth Venn, Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, New York, NY, 1998.Condition
overall good, with remnants of old adhesive on edges on back and residue on lower edge on back, one 1/8 by 1/4 in. area of discoloration in sky upper right and scattered discoloration lower right edge
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