Edwin Dickinson

(American, 1891-1978)

Stone Tower, 1940

oil on canvas

signed EW Dickinson (upper right); signed, dated later by the artist, and illegibly inscribed (right edge)

40 x 50 inches.

The Collection of Philip and Judith Sieg, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania

The present lot is recorded and illustrated in the online catalogue raisonné of Edwin Walter Dickinson's work by Helen Dickinson Baldwin as number 363.

Provenance:

The Artist

Wife of the Artist

Babcock Galleries, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owners, 1994

Exhibited:

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edwin Dickinson. Major retrospective, October 20 - November 28, 1965, no. 67, pp. 16; 50

Chicago, Gilman Galleries, Edwin Dickinson, Paintings, January 8 - ?, 1966

Katonah, New York, Katonah Gallery, Paintings and Drawings by Edwin Dickinson, June 12 - July 12, 1966

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Peale House Gallery, Edwin Dickinson and Homer Johnson: Paintings, April 21 - May 29, 1966

New York, Graham Gallery, 1967

San Francisco, California, San Francisco Art Institute, Untitled 1968*, November 9 - December, 29, 1968

Provincetown, Massachusetts, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Edwin Dickinson Retrospective, August 14 - September 7, 1976

Syracuse, New York, Everson Museum of Art, Provincetown Painters: 1890's to 1970's, April 1 - June 26, 1977 (also traveled to Provincetown, Massachusetts, Provincetown Art Association [?], August 1977) [exhibited only in Provincetown and not listed in catalogue]

New York, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Memorial exhibition: Edwin Dickinson, Charles Eames, Eugene Francis Savage, Edward Durell Stone, Stow Wengenroth, November 9 - December 30, 1979, no. 21

Washington, DC, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Edwin Dickinson: Selected Landscapes, September 18 - November 14, 1980, no. 39, p. 14, illus. (also traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, J.B. Speed Art Museum, January 19 - March 1, 1981)

New York, National Academy of Design Galleries, Art Students League Benefit Sale, May 18 - July 4, 1982 (also traveled to Springfield, Massachusetts, July 3 - August 15, 1982; West Palm Beach, Norton Gallery of Art, September 10 - October 17, 1982)

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Realism and Abstraction: Counterpoints in American Drawings, 1900-1940, November 12 - December 30, 1983

Boston, Alpha Gallery, Edwin Dickinson, March 9 - April 3, 1985

Babcock Galleries, Edwin Dickinson: Revelations, October 15 - November 22, 1996, no. 25

Lot note:

As a painter who defies categorization, Edwin Dickinson’s work sits at the intersection of modernism, romanticism, and symbolism. Known as a “painter’s painter,” Dickinson has long been celebrated by fellow artists and befriended the likes of Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Esther Hoyt Sawyer, and Jack Tworkov. Perhaps most well-known for his psychological self-portraits, Dickinson also veered into landscapes, both imagined and real. In 1939, the artist moved to Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where he soon constructed his own studio and started a period of great artistic output from between 1940 and 1943. It was during this time that Stone Tower was created. Although Dickinson regularly used the technique of premier coup, or first strike, for his summer landscapes, he abandons premier coup in Stone Tower. The painting fits naturally into Dickinson’s shadowed and sometimes eerie worlds. To create the imposing tower, Dickinson used, in his own words, a “violent angular perspective above the eye.” This unusual angle of the tower is indicative of Dickinson’s love of and his experimentation with perspective. The tower itself is imagined, and Dickinson chose to craft it using various shades of lilac, reportedly his favorite color.

Stone Tower, 1940

Stone Tower, 1940