Andrew Wyeth American, 1917-2009
75.6 x 54.9 cm
The Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Study Center of the Brandywine Museum of Art confirms that this object is recorded in Betsy James Wyeth’s files.
Andrew Wyeth's Robin Redbreast exemplifies the artist's mastery in watercolor. The present watercolor depicts a ground-floor window of Wyeth's Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania studio. Here, a lone robin rests on the windowsill, a poignant reminder of its fatal collision with the glass, likely confused by the reflection of vegetation in the window, which Wyeth deftly captures. The window motif holds a special significance in Wyeth's oeuvre, appearing in over 300 works. It served as the focal point of the important exhibition Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In, organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 2014, which notably included Robin Redbreast. Wyeth was drawn to the subject of the window for both its conceptual and compositional possibilities. Painting as a window onto another world has a long tradition in art history, and windows have often served as surrogates for the pictorial support. At the vanguard of 20th-century realism, Wyeth's work in watercolor situates him among the ranks of American watercolorists like Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Edward Hopper.
Provenance
The artist;Private collection, Moorestown, New Jersey, 1989;
Frank Fowler, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee; to
The estate of the above
Exhibitions
Brandywine Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, Andrew Wyeth Gallery—Spring 1989, May 15-November 12, 1989Brandywine Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, A Painter's View: The Andrew Wyeth Studio, March 27-November 5, 2012
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In, May 4-November 30, 2014, no. 40
Literature
John Chambless, "New exhibit opens the doors to Andrew Wyeth's studio," Chester County Press, April 4, 2012, p. 1BNancy K. Anderson and Charles Brock, Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In, Washington, D.C., 2014, illus. in color
Karen Baumgartner, Andrew Wyeth: People and Places, Chadds Ford: Brandywine Museum of Art/Skira Rizzoli, 2017, illus. in color