ARTIST: Edward Willis Redfield (Pennsylvania, Delaware, 1869 - 1965)
NAME: Sketchbook with 3 Landscape Watercolors
YEAR: circa 1890
MEDIUM: watercolor on paper
CONDITION: The book itself has wear on the outside with edge and corner wear/chips to the covers. Some discoloration and bubbly of cloth part of cover. Spine is leather bound. Rear cover has separation of cloth from leather. Despite these flaws, the book is viable and well intact with a tight binding.
SIGHT SIZE: 7 x 10 inches / 17 x 25 cm
FRAME SIZE: unframed
SIGNATURE: on front cover interior page
NOTE: The piece contains three separate watercolors done by Edward Redfield. Acquired at a Bucks County estate sale of a gentleman who bought the Redfield family home with contents. Many of Redfields original items were auctioned at this sale, quite a few bought by prominent museums, including the Michener Museum. The book was said to be used by Redfield around 1890, when he was a student at Academie Julian and the Ecoles des Beaux-Arts in France. The front cover interior page is signed "E.W. Redfield" in pen. Our research has indicated that it was signed in his handwriting with distinctive lettering! It also says, in his handwriting, "1311 Alleghany Ave Philadelphia, Pa US America". We have found that this was his United States residence during this period of time.
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
SKU#: 116153
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Edward Willis Redfield (Pennsylvania, Delaware, 1869 - 1965)
Born in Bridgeville, Delaware, Edward Redfield moved to Philadelphia as a youngster and lived much of his life near New Hope in Bucks County, an easy distance north of Philadelphia. There he became the leader of the colony of artists known as the New Hope Impressionists. In modified Impressionist style and methods, he did many landscapes, especially panoramic snowscenes of the area, and used thick paint applied to large canvases with long brush strokes instead of the feathery strokes of true French Impressionism.
He usually finished his paintings in "one go" meaning plein-air, sometimes strapping his canvas to a tree on blustery days and standing knee-deep in snow. In the summers, he painted at Boothbay Harbor, Maine. He was also a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy and a skilled craftsman who built his own house, cabinets and restored antiques.
Redfield took his early training from a Mr. Rolf in order to pass the examination at the Pennsylvania Academy, where he studied from 1885 to 1889 under teachers including Thomas Anschutz, James Kelley, and Thomas Hovenden. A fellow student was Robert Henri, with whom he developed a strong friendship, and with whom he traveled to Paris in 1889.
In Paris, he studied at the Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts and his teachers were Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. However, he wearied of the pervasive academic styles at these schools, and spent much time painting landscapes in the Forest of Fountainbleu outside of Paris. He also painted at Barbizon and Pont-Aven.
Married, he and his wife returned to Pennsylvania in 1898 and decided to settle in Center Bridge in Bucks County near New Hope. His presence in Bucks County was enough to lure many younger artists to the region making it a nucleus for the American Impressionist movement. Holding a special affection for this man, author and fellow-Pennsylvanian James Michener wrote that Redfield "had a cluttered workshop on the canal in which he did large landscapes, especially snow scenes, and made furntiture and delightfully desinged hooked rugs. I liked his work, and I liked him, a big Russian-bear kind of man." (Folk 10)
He exhibited extensively throughout the country and abroad, and won an impressive array of awards, including a Bronze medal, Paris Exposition (1900); Bronze Medal, Pan-American Exposition (1901); Temple Medal (1903), Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal (1904), Gold Medal of Honor (1907), Lippincott Prize (1912), and Stotesbury prize (1920), all from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Silver medal (1904), St. Louis Exposition; Fischer Prize and Gold Medal (1908) form the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Honorable Mention (1908) and Third Class Medal (1909), Paris Salon; Palmer Gold Medal (1913), Chicago Art Institute; Hors Concous Prize (1915), Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco; Carnegie Prize (1918), Altman Prize (1919), and Saltus Medal (1927), National Academy of Design.
His paintings are included in numerous museums and public collections throughout the country, such as the Boston Museum of Art, Brooklyn Art Institute, Carnegie Institute, Chicago Art Institute, Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Towards the end of his life, he burned hundreds of paintings that he regarded as inferior. He died in 1965 in Center Bridge, Pennsylvania, and his work received little attention during the decade following his death. However, he has come to be regarded as a key American Impressionist and appreciated for his influence at New Hope.