Nov 20, 2014 - Sale 2367

Sale 2367 - Lot 309

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
"ART MUSEUMS SHOULD DEVOTE A SMALL SECTION TO . . . ILLUSTRATIVE WORK" WYETH, N.C. Autograph Letter Signed, with a postscript Signed, "W," to "My dear Mr. Barrett," describing the kinds of art he has done, where the works have exhibited, giving his opinion concerning the place of illustration in the world of fine art, outlining some works that are in progress, and, in a postscript, asking whether he knows a botany teacher of Wyeth's who helped give him his start. 5 pages, square 8vo, written on three separate sheets, personal stationery; staple holes in left margin, horizontal fold. Chadds Ford, [1930s]
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". . . I have exhibited my illustrative canvases at various times and places in the past fifteen years--New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland--in fact in most of the larger centers of the U.S. The majority of these canvases have been sold to libraries, schools, and to individual buyers. . . .
"Although I most emphatically believe that art museums should devote a small section to examples of illustrative work . . . I am frank to admit that the graphic illustrators' product has no rightful place in the galleries restricted to the works of master painters. There is a vast difference between the two branches of art.
"I started, as a pupil of the late Howard Pyle, to become an illustrator. . . . [I]n the last ten years I have expanded into the larger field of mural painting . . . .
"Another line of development--landscape and figure painting (which I have never publicly exhibited) has recently received recognition. The Art Institute of Chicago has invited a sizable group of these paintings to their American Painters Show next fall. These latter works are, most decidedly, my best efforts thus far. . . ."
From the postscript: ". . . If you are a native of Dorchester, do you remember the teacher of botany in the public schools there years ago--Fanny Zirngiebel?--a cousin, and she did much to get me started."