Edward Willis Redfield

Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Private collection (acquired from the above; sold: Sotheby's, New York, April 16, 2014, lot 76)
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Pennsylvania Impressionist Edward Redfield is widely regarded as one of the founding members of the New Hope Circle, celebrated for his energetic depictions of the rural scenery where he lived. His plein air works have become synonymous with American landscape painting of the time. 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 . . . 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 . . . 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 . . . 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 illusion 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). 

The present work reflects the Delaware Canal, North of New Hope, Pennsylvania, close to where Redfield lived. The artist depicts the frosted morning, potentially the first of the season as the green grass of the summer turns brown and leaves coat the ground, signaling the impending winter.