Andrew Newell Wyeth (American, 1917-2009). Slack Tide, 1940. Gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper

Description

Andrew Newell Wyeth (American, 1917-2009)
Slack Tide, 1940
Gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper
16 x 30-1/4 inches (40.6 x 76.8 cm) (sheet)
Signed lower right: Andrew Wyeth

PROVENANCE:
The Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Collection, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 1940;
Meinhard Galleries, Houston, Texas, 1943;
Private collection, Houston, Texas, by 1983;
By descent to the present owner, 2003.

EXHIBITED:
Doll & Richards, Boston, Massachusetts, "Water Colors by Andrew Wyeth," November 29-December 14, 1940;
Meinhard Galleries, Houston, Texas, January 1943;
Deerfield Academy, Hilson Gallery, Deerfield, Massachusetts, "Wyeth Exhibition," May 5-June 6, 1957.

Executed in 1940, Slack Tide exemplifies the vigor of Andrew Wyeth's early watercolors, painted at a moment when his touch was unrestrained, spontaneous, and alive with color. Unlike the subdued temperas for which he would later become celebrated, these youthful watercolors are characterized by their immediacy-sweeping washes, vibrant hues, and brushwork that captures the pulse of the natural world.

Slack Tide depicts a scene at Morris Cove in Martinsville, Maine, near the Wyeth family homestead in Cushing, the coastal community that would shape the artist's vision for the rest of his life. Wyeth's father, the illustrator N.C. Wyeth, had purchased property there in the early 1930s, and Andrew quickly found inspiration in the stark beauty of its weathered farms, tidal inlets, and resilient inhabitants. The Maine landscape became a place of artistic awakening for him-its unvarnished authenticity perfectly suited his lifelong fascination with solitude, endurance, and the poetry of everyday life.

Here, the crisp coastal air feels almost tangible: the luminous greens of the fields, the flash of red along the shore, and the quick, gestural strokes that animate the vegetation. A lone figure bent over a dory underscores Wyeth's instinct for locating human presence within the quiet rhythms of nature.

Painted just before he began his long association with the Olson family-subjects of his later masterpiece Christina's World, 1948-Slack Tide anticipates the mood and sensibility that would define the artist's career.

The Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Study Center of the Brandywine Museum of Art confirms that this object is recorded in Betsy James Wyeth's files.

The present work is accompanied by a copy of Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth by Beth and Adam D. Weinberg (Whitney Museum, 1998).


Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000.

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