Edward Willis Redfield (American, 1869-1965) Village Street
Edward Willis Redfield
(American, 1869-1965)
Village Street
oil on canvas
signed E W REDFIELD (lower left)
26 x 20 in.
This lot is located in Philadelphia.
Housed in a Frederick Harer frame.
Provenance:
Jim's of Lambertville, Lambertville, New Jersey.
Acquired from the above, July 2018.
Lot Note:
In Village Street, Redfield turns from open landscapes and river views to the close quarters of a Bucks County lane in late autumn. A tall tree, its crown still thick with orange and ochre leaves, rises almost to the top of the canvas and dominates the scene, while a narrow road slips beneath it toward a cluster of pale houses and a green-roofed porch. The sky is a hard, clear blue, and the paint is applied in the short, loaded strokes that characterize his mature work: flecks of amber for the foliage, hatched violet and gray for the shadows lying across the road, and a few quick notes of red along the branches at right. Redfield was committed to painting directly from nature in a single sitting, and the present lot has the immediacy that method produces, with the tangle of bare twigs, the slanting light, and the figure in pink at the far end of the street all recorded at speed and with certainty. A telephone pole stands among the trees at right, an unsentimental detail that places the scene firmly in the working life of an early twentieth-century village and suggests an artist more interested in what he saw than in making it picturesque. The view is tightly cropped and tall in format, and its upward thrust gives the foliage a monumentality out of proportion to its modest setting. It is an accomplished example of the artist's village subjects, painted with economy and conviction.
Condition
Framed: 32 1/2 x 27 1/2 x 2 in.Please contact adamveil@freemansauction.com for a detailed condition report.
Estimate
Reserve
Time, Location
Auction House
Edward Willis Redfield
(American, 1869-1965)
Village Street
oil on canvas
signed E W REDFIELD (lower left)
26 x 20 in.
This lot is located in Philadelphia.
Housed in a Frederick Harer frame.
Provenance:
Jim's of Lambertville, Lambertville, New Jersey.
Acquired from the above, July 2018.
Lot Note:
In Village Street, Redfield turns from open landscapes and river views to the close quarters of a Bucks County lane in late autumn. A tall tree, its crown still thick with orange and ochre leaves, rises almost to the top of the canvas and dominates the scene, while a narrow road slips beneath it toward a cluster of pale houses and a green-roofed porch. The sky is a hard, clear blue, and the paint is applied in the short, loaded strokes that characterize his mature work: flecks of amber for the foliage, hatched violet and gray for the shadows lying across the road, and a few quick notes of red along the branches at right. Redfield was committed to painting directly from nature in a single sitting, and the present lot has the immediacy that method produces, with the tangle of bare twigs, the slanting light, and the figure in pink at the far end of the street all recorded at speed and with certainty. A telephone pole stands among the trees at right, an unsentimental detail that places the scene firmly in the working life of an early twentieth-century village and suggests an artist more interested in what he saw than in making it picturesque. The view is tightly cropped and tall in format, and its upward thrust gives the foliage a monumentality out of proportion to its modest setting. It is an accomplished example of the artist's village subjects, painted with economy and conviction.
Condition
Framed: 32 1/2 x 27 1/2 x 2 in.Please contact adamveil@freemansauction.com for a detailed condition report.
Estimate
Reserve
Time, Location
Auction House
