EDWARD WILLIS REDFIELD | On the River Bank

The artist
Private collection, 1956 (acquired from the above)
By descent to the present owner

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Institute, The Fourteenth Annual Exhibition at the Carnegie Institute, May-June 1910, n.p.
San Francisco, California, Palace of the Fine Arts, Gallery 88, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, no. 3930, p. 174

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes, Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work seems to be in good condition. The canvas has a glue lining. The texture of the paint layer seems to be healthy and mostly unaffected by the lining. It is hard to identify restorations under ultraviolet light because the original paint reads very strongly, especially in the foreground. However, there seems to be an area of restoration beneath the chicken furthest to the left. There may be a couple of other restorations, but none of any note. There are two paint losses above the rowboat and the water that have not been restored. The painting does not appear to be particularly dirty.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Pennsylvania Impressionist Edward Redfield is widely regarded as one of the pioneering members of the New Hope Circle. Famed for his vigorous and energetic renderings of the rural scenery which surrounded him, Redfield’s en plein air works have become synonymous with the unsentimental individualism characteristic of early twentieth century landscape painting. In the present work, Redfield renders the snowy bank of the Delaware River with several stray chickens and two lone moored row boats. This painting captures the stark, untouched landscape of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an area Redfield sourced and studied time and time again over his sixty-five year career. Painted in 1910, On the River Bank epitomizes the artist’s keen ability to capture the ever-changing seasons of the region. A review of a 1914 exhibition praised Redfield’s vision of his local landscape: “Among the men whose work is typical of our time and have done much to instill a distinctive note of nationalism in American Art, Edward W. Redfield deserves a most prominent place. An avowed realist, his art is concrete and explicit, depicting with extraordinary truthfulness the aspects of nature. Winter has furnished him with most of his themes; his greatest successes were achieved in the presentation of atmospheric and climatic effects peculiar to this season. Most sensitively alert to the ever-changing phases of his subjects his keen eye records the differences with unerring fidelity – here, deftly suggesting the soggy wet, melting snow – there, the dry, powdery surface as it appears in zero-degree weather – again, he successfully gives the effect of heavy snowfall with thick, grey atmosphere threatening still another storm, while he often pictures the bright scintillating effect of sunlight as it flits across the snow covered fields, Mr. Redfield works almost exclusively out of doors. In the Delaware valley and the Pennsylvania hill country around Center Bridge, where he lives, every inch of ground is familiar to him. When he has selected a subject for presentation he studies it most analytically and carefully observes under which atmospheric conditions it appears to best advantage, often going a dozen times to the spot before it seems ripe to him. The painting once begun is executed with amazing rapidity; such is the virtuosity that most of the canvases are completed in a single sitting. Thoroughly conversant with the principle of impressionism as discovered by the Frenchmen, he has evolved a style of his own. He works with a full brush, and vigorously in the most direct manner possible, lays in this subject with pure, vibrating and luminous color. Few artists succeed in creating such a perfect illustion of out of door light and sense of actuality” (Constance Kimmerle, Edward W. Redfield, Just Values and Fine Seeing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2004, pp. 119-20). 



This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Edward Redfield's work being compiled by Dr. Thomas Folk.