$390,000
Estimate: $300,000 - $500,000
American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists
Auction: June 14, 2020 3:00:00 PM EDT
Signed and dated 'E.W. REDFIELD/MAY 1, 1926' bottom right, oil on canvas
38 x 50 in. (96.5 x 127cm)
Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, New York.
Jack Melchers Passailaigue, Sr.
By bequest to the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia.
Christie's, New York, sale of December 5, 2002, lot 91.
Acquired directly from the above sale.
Private Collection, Pennsylvania.
Christie's, New York, sale of November 30, 2006, lot 135.
Acquired directly from the above sale.
Jim's of Lambertville, Lambertville, New Jersey.
Acquired directly from the above.
Collection of Heidi Bingham Stott, Florida.
(Possibly) "Catalogue of Paintings by Edward Redfield," Art Club of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 17-December 5, 1920, no. 17.
"Exhibition of Paintings by Daniel Garber, N.A. and Edward W. Redfield, also Paintings by New Hope Artists," Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey, October 10-27, 1935, no. 40.
"A Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Edward Redfield," Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, New York, April 16-May 4, 1968, no. 38.
"American Impressionism in Georgia Collections," Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia, 1993.
J.M.W. Fletcher, Edward Willis Redfield, 1869-1965: An American Impressionist, His Paintings and the Man Behind the Palette, Lahaska, Pennsylvania, 1996, p. 26 (illustrated).
J.M.W. Fletcher, Edward Willis Redfield, An American Impressionist 1869-1965: The Redfield Letters, vol. I, Lahaska, Pennsylvania, 2000, p. 195, no. 27 (illustrated).
Donald D. Keyes, American Impressionism in Georgia Collection, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia, 1994.
The present work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Edward Redfield's work, being compiled by Dr. Thomas C. Folk.
In 1898, Edward Redfield and his wife moved from Glenside, PA to the Belle Island Farm in Centre Bridge, just five miles north of New Hope, along the Delaware River and canal. The bucolic region became the artist's most favored subject; one he captured in every season from his studio in Point Pleasant. Redfield started to set numerous spring scenes there in the 1910s, thus showing an early attachment to the locale, further confirmed in a 1929 interview during which the artist confessed: "there is a real 'church': go there at sundown and watch the changing colors in earth and sky and water. it is a place to worship." The present scene is one of the artist's largest compositions and captures all the hallmarks of his celebrated style. Executed en plein-air, "at one go" for about seven hours straight, it depicts in thick and short brushstrokes a plunging view of the Delaware River on May Day. Redfield's familiarity with landscape painting, paired with his bold and swift application of paint, provide an impressionistic and all the more truthful depiction of his beloved surroundings. The scene abounds with brightness and life; through colorful and contrasting hues, the artist is able to convey the bursting and reinvigorating feeling of spring, thus tempting the viewer to walk right into the picture plane and enjoy the warmth of a peaceful, sunny day.