Picture This: capturing text through image
Our first full post of the 2016 season finds us at the Concord Museum in MA at a small and fascinating exhibit featuring a series from the later career of the incredibly talented 20th century illustrator and painter, NC Wyeth.
At the Concord Museum in Massachusetts you can see a rare thing: 12 paintings by illustrator, NC Wyeth, which were exhibited all together only once, almost 80 years ago. This series was begun in the fall of 1935, when Wyeth received the commission from Houghton Mifflin to illustrate “Men of Concord”, a book based upon the journal entries of Henry David Thoreau.
As early as 1918, Wyeth had pitched the idea to the publishing house of creating “a series of interpretations” based upon Thoreau’s life and words. But the demand for his work as an illustrator and painter kept him from fulfilling his concept for almost 2 decades. Houghton Mifflin Publishing asked Wyeth in 1919 to illustrate Longfellow's narrative poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish", which frustrated the artist who wanted to commence work on the Thoreau book; this and other commissions would further delay the publication an additional 17 years. Image: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Courtship of Miles Standish. Illus. NC Wyeth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company (1920).
Finally, in the fall of 1936 the book was published followed by an exhibit of all 12 illustrations at the Concord Free Public Library in 1938. Thoreau (brown coat) and Emerson (tall hat) are featured prominently in this unique perspective. Image: Men of Concord (cover illustration), oil on hardboard, 38 ¾ x 32”, Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Amanda K. Berls, 1980. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
Wyeth had hoped that the series would remain intact and ultimately become the property of the library, but that was beyond the library’s financial capacity, and so the paintings were sold, over time, to various individuals and institutions. Eventually, 5 of the panels came to be displayed in the Thoreau Room at the Concord Free Public Library, either through purchase or permanent loan. Image: Seated Emerson, 1914, marble, Daniel Chester French (American, 1850-1931), Concord Free Public Library, Thoreau Room.
Newell Convers Wyeth was born on October 22, 1882 in Needham, MA. His paternal lineage dated back to New England’s early beginnings with English ancestors settling in Cambridge in 1645. His maternal grandfather, Swiss born, Denys Zirngiebel, worked for the Harvard Botanical Gardens as a trained botanist, and purchased land for his own greenhouses in Needham. NC’s parents, who were neighbors in Cambridge as children, were married in 1881, and a house was built for them on the Zirngiebel property. NC Wyeth as a teenager, photograph, 1905, Google Images, unknown source.
NC enjoyed an idyllic childhood along with his 4 younger brothers. Even as a young child he displayed artistic talent, which led him to attend Massachusetts Normal Art School (MA College of Art) in Boston. Image: Fishing Through the Ice, oil on hardboard, 42 ¼ x 31 ¼”, on loan to the Concord Free Public Library since 2003 by the family of Emilie Norton Thomas. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
He left New England for Delaware in 1902 to study under, Howard Pyle, who is considered the father of American illustration. While a student under Pyle, his illustration of a bucking bronco was featured on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post—a major accomplishment, and at the young age of 21! Professionally, Wyeth never looked back. Image: Bucking Bronco, NC Wyeth, 1903, Saturday Evening Post.
He married Carolyn Bockius (considered the “prettiest girl in town”) of Wilmington, DE in 1906, and with constant commissions coming in, they were able to build a house and art studio in Chadds Ford, PA, where they raised five children, and NC “could work out his destiny”. Image: Chadds Ford Lanscape—July 1909, oil on canvas, 25x30 1/2", Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wyeth, 1970. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
Despite his incredible success NC longed to create fine art, but with a large family he continued accepting illustration jobs, eventually becoming disenchanted with the commercialization of his talents and the unrelenting demands of his sponsors. N.C. Wyeth, Self-portrait,1913, oil on canvas. Private collection.
Every evening from his home NC would face northeast in the direction of New England and imagine the family homestead in Needham. Then, in 1921, he uprooted his entire family after building a house on the site of his grandfather’s greenhouses. The move, however, was not a success as his family, who were not native New Englanders, missed the only home they had ever known in the Brandywine valley, and as for NC, he felt disillusioned by the modern changes that had swept his beloved Needham over the past 2 decades. Adrift, they packed up and returned to Chadds Ford after only 2 years. On the back of this painting Wyeth wrote the words "New England", indicating that he felt this illustration captured the essence of not only Concord but the entire region. Image: "A man of a certain probity and worth, immortal and natural" (from Thoreau's journal), oil on hardboard, 36 x 32”, private collection, (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
Regardless, NC was a New Englander at heart, and he always found ways to stay connected to his heritage. He made several trips back to New England, in particular, Concord, MA, immersing himself in the culture and literary works of the "Concord Quartet": Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau. He considered himself a “disciple” of Thoreau, and his studio library held several copies of his writings; in particular, he considered “Walden” his Bible. He referred to it often, as it provided him guidance in his constant quest for the meaning of both life and his work—each informing the other. Hubbard's Bridge spanned the Sudbury River, but the water featured in this illustration is similar to the Concord River which flows under the historic North Bridge in Concord. Image: The Carpenters Repairing Hubbbard's Bridge, oil on hardboard, 38 ¼ x28 1/4 “, Concord Public Library, Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Caleb Henry Wheeler in memory of Caleb Kendall Wheeler. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
Because of Thoreau, he was able to express his deep fascination and appreciation of nature, particularly in his landscape paintings. He considered this work, the endpaper illustration, the most painterly and important of the series, and it was exhibited as “Fox in the Snow” in his first solo show in 1939 at the Macbeth Gallery, NYC. Thoreau is the figure featured in the foreground. NC wrote: "...there are just as big things around everyone's threshold as can be found everywhere". Thoreau wrote: "Live at home like a traveler". We couldn't agree more--when we launched Tankful Travels 5 years ago, we placed this quote on our "About" page, under the "Long Description". Image: Men of Concord (endpaper illustration), oil on hardboard 28 5/8 x 41”, Arkell Museum at Canjoharie, Gift of Barlett Arkell, 1940. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
Creating the illustrations for “Men of Concord” took just under a year to complete, and was a deeply enjoyable process for Wyeth. It gave him an opportunity to pay homage to his New England roots and the American renaissance, an intellectual leap that serendipitously unfolded in Concord during the 1830s and 40s. Always introspective, the concept that the soul possesses the “inherent power to grasp the truth” resonated with NC, who believed art should be a conduit of truth. The series gave him a platform to present the tenets of his talents as well as his soul, leaving him somewhat bereft when the work was finished on Nov. 24, 1936. The book’s sales were respectable, but for Wyeth, success lied less in the project’s commercial terms and more in its aesthetic values wrought. This painting reveals the hand and heart of a skillfull illustrator: with Thoreau's back to the viewer, one is left to interpret what he might be thinking about these "slimy" (according to his journal entry) characters. Image: Thoreau and the Three Reformers, 43"x32”, private collection. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit).
On the morning of Oct. 19, 1945, while out running errands with his not-quite-4 year old grandson and namesake, NC’s car was struck by a train as it crossed the tracks in Chadds Ford, just minutes from his home. The 2 died instantly. The child’s parents were NC’s son, Nathaniel and his wife Caroline, who was Howard Pyle’s daughter. NC would have turned 63 just 3 days later. The Men of Concord exhibit is on view now through Sept. 18th. Image: Mr. Alcott in the Granary Burying Gournd in Boston, oil on hardboard, 43 1/8 x 32”, Boston Athenaeum. (from "Men of Concord" exhibit)
Visit the Concord Museum
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