Field Hand [recto]

1985

Andrew Wyeth

Artist, American, 1917 - 2009

A man with dark brown skin sits or reclines on the far side of a fallen, ash-white tree trunk in this horizontal watercolor painting. The trunk angles from just above the lower left corner of the sheet down and off the edge of the bottom right corner. The trunk is smooth with some fine cracks running along its length. Shorn roots flare out at the left end. The man sits near the roots so only his face and upper shoulders are visible as he looks to our right in profile. He has high, slightly hollow cheekbones and a prominent, pointed jaw. His upper lip is darker than the lower, and his mouth is closed. He wears a khaki-colored, floppy-brimmed hat and a high-collared white shirt. A hook affixed to the end of a tube, perhaps a prosthetic or tool, at the end of a long strap with a silver buckle is draped over the trunk. Grass and a few plants grow in the lower left corner of the composition, on our side of the tree, and a velvety, moss-green hill swells in the distance against the blank white sheet. We look sharply down onto the roofs of a house and barn in the deep distance, visible just over the edge of the tree near the lower right.
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor over graphite on wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Leonard E.B. Andrews

  • Dimensions

    sheet: 55.1 × 100.8 cm (21 11/16 × 39 11/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1986.58.1.a

  • Copyright

    © Andrew Wyeth

Associated Artworks

A sketch of the profile of a man on the far side of a tubular shape is at the center of this horizontal sheet. The man’s face is shaded to show the planes of his high cheekbones and full lips. He wears a floppy, brimmed hat. The space around him has a few lines to indicate a hill in the distance and the volume of the object behind which he is shown. Some strokes and dabs of ash-gray are along the bottom and right edges of the sheet.

Field Hand [verso]

Andrew Wyeth

1985


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Leonard E.B. Andrews, Malvern, PA; gift to NGA, 1986

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1992

  • The Land of the Brandywine, Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 1992, no cat.

2008

  • Andrew Wyeth: Emotion and Creation, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo; Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima, 2008 - 2009, no. 140.

  • Andrew Wyeth: Emotion and Creation The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan, 8 Nov 2008-23 Dec 2008

Bibliography

2001

  • Andrew Wyeth: Close Friends. Seattle and London, 2001: unnumbered.

2008

  • Andrew Wyeth: Emotion and Creation (Exh. Cat.: The Bunkamure Museum of Art, Tokyo; Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima, 2008-2009). Nagoya, 2008, cat. no. 140.

Inscriptions

"Andrew Wyeth" lower right margin, graphite, artist's hand. Not dated.

Markings

BS: Strathmore

Wikidata ID

Q64535816


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