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Lot Essay
Painted in 1946, The Stone Fence exemplifies Andrew Wyeth's mastery of tempera. On this media Wyeth has said: "It's a dry pigment mixed with distilled water and yoke of egg. I love the quality of the colors: the earths, the terra verde, the ochers, the Indian reds, and the blue-reds. They aren't artificial. I like to pick the colors up and hold them in my fingers. Tempera is something with which I build--like building in great layers the way the earth was itself built. Tempera is not the medium for swiftness." (as quoted in T. Hoving, Andrew Wyeth, New York, 1995, p. 11) At this time in his career Wyeth employed materials and techniques to minimize the trace of the artist's hand. "My aim is to escape from the medium with which I work. To leave no residue of technical mannerisms to stand between my expression and the observer. To seek freedom through significant form and design rather than through the diversions of so-called free and accidental brush handling." (A. Weinberg, Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, New York, 1998, p. 30)
Whether seen in a weather-beaten fence post, in an empty cornfield after harvest or in the wrinkled face of an old man, Andrew Wyeth's paintings bear witness to the passage of time. The Stone Fence is among the artist's most profound representations of this theme, as the painting reveals the artist's great sense of the past and the present as expressed in the vernacular architecture and ancient farm implements of rural Pennsylvania. Wanda Corn has noted the importance of temporal qualities in Wyeth's work, writing, "Time stops as his paintings make permanent what we know to be transitory. Paths and tracks in the snow or sand, or birds in flight become as fixed and static as ancient hieroglyphs; a sunbeam's playfulness on a wall, a patch of snow in the sun, or a fleeting flush of anger on his wife's cheek are made timeless and unchanging." (The Art of Andrew Wyeth, San Francisco, California, 1973, p. 155) The present work was completed in the artist's studio of the Hoffses' house, East Waldoboro, Maine.
This painting will be included in Betsy James Wyeth's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.
Whether seen in a weather-beaten fence post, in an empty cornfield after harvest or in the wrinkled face of an old man, Andrew Wyeth's paintings bear witness to the passage of time. The Stone Fence is among the artist's most profound representations of this theme, as the painting reveals the artist's great sense of the past and the present as expressed in the vernacular architecture and ancient farm implements of rural Pennsylvania. Wanda Corn has noted the importance of temporal qualities in Wyeth's work, writing, "Time stops as his paintings make permanent what we know to be transitory. Paths and tracks in the snow or sand, or birds in flight become as fixed and static as ancient hieroglyphs; a sunbeam's playfulness on a wall, a patch of snow in the sun, or a fleeting flush of anger on his wife's cheek are made timeless and unchanging." (The Art of Andrew Wyeth, San Francisco, California, 1973, p. 155) The present work was completed in the artist's studio of the Hoffses' house, East Waldoboro, Maine.
This painting will be included in Betsy James Wyeth's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.