PARRISH MAXFIELD Autograph Letter Signed to Dear Mr [NC] Wye

Sale 2316 - Lot 269

Price Realized: $ 1,140

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

"I . . . KNOW HOW ROTTEN AND SHALLOW MY WORK HAD BEEN. BUT WAIT." PARRISH, MAXFIELD. Autograph Letter Signed, to "Dear Mr. [N.C.?] Wyeth," declining his request for a painting and commenting about life in New York City and the National Academy Exhibition. 2 pages, 3 1/2x5 1/2 inches, written on the recto and verso; minor even toning. New York, 21 January 1919

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In full: "My nature is naturally an extremely cold one, but your letter affected me deeply. It was enough to make M. Angelo get up from his tomb & paint a picture for you on the spot. If I were dead I think I would do it, but living in this awful city for a while, of course its impossible. Maybe you have been here yourself once? Maybe it accounts for the National Academy exhibition here, though I'd hate to blame any city for that.
"But, I have not one single thing I could send you. I've done nothing but 'orders' and decorations for a number of years, and everything else, sketches, paint rags, things up in the attic have gone to war charities. The walls of my studio make a railroad station waiting room where trains stop only on notice to the conductor look like a Persian Cosy Corner.
"Soon, I think I can paint entirely for myself, then I may have a picture for you in a future exhibition. I have arrived at years of common sense & now know how rotten and shallow my work has been. But wait."