Provenance

The Artist.
The Estate of the Artist.
Private Collection, Pennsylvania.

Exhibited
"One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Annual Exhibition," Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 26-March 17, 1929.
"Exhibition of Landscape Paintings by Edward W. Redfield," Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, New York, January 7-31, 1930.
"A Retrospective Exhibition of His [Edward Redfield's] Work, Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 23-November 30, 1968.

Literature
John M. W. Fletcher, Edward Willis Redfield 1869-1965, An American Impressionist: His Paintings and the Man Behind the Palette, Lahaska, Pennsylvania, 1996, p. 174, no. 535 (listed, not illustrated).
John M. W. Fletcher, Edward Willis Redfield, An American Impressionist 1869-1965: The Redfield Letters, Vol. II, Lahaska, Pennsylvania, 2002, no. 387, p. 464 (illustrated).

Note

The present work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Edward Redfield's work, compiled by Dr. Thomas C. Folk.

In 1903, Edward Redfield was advised by one of his leading patrons, Dr. Samuel Woodward, to travel to Maine for the summer. While the first trip was generously financed by his friend, Redfield and his wife would repeatedly return to the charming village of Boothbay Harbor, where they eventually bought a house for their family. Many artists had visited Maine since the mid-1800s, some even establishing an artist colony on the picturesque, and remote, Monhegan Island. For Redfield, Maine represented a drastic change of scenery as he would paint most of his work within a mile of his home in Centre Bridge, Pennsylvania.
With its rugged hills, shallow beaches, and picturesque fishing villages, Maine's landscape provided Redfield with the liberating opportunity to explore and capture untouched, raw forms of life unique to the northern seacoast. The seascapes and landscapes Redfield painted in Maine in the early teens are considered among his best works. They showcase his ferocious painterly method and his rapid, spontaneous brushstrokes, which echo Nature’s power and overall vitality. Robert Henri, who often joined the Redfields in Maine, noted the impression the artist had on the local inhabitants: "slinging the paint over big canvases, astounding the natives and astounding the local artists with his rapidity as well as his results..."
Painted in the late 1920s, The Path to the Beach exudes the simple, and peaceful way of life along Maine’s rugged shoreline. It depicts an old man walking side by side with a younger girl on a winding, sandy path leading towards the distant beach, as indicated in the title. The painting was painted en plein-air on Monhegan Island, and features many local aspects that Redfield has already introduced in earlier, similar subjects such as Peaceful Harbor and Monhegan Home: the typical, and austere, cedar shake fisherman houses along the sandy path, the grassy hills, the docked boats as well as the lobster traps. With the figures’ backs turned at us and the overall stillness of the composition, the painting conveys a sense of anonymity and quietude – two qualities that Redfield appreciated while in Maine. It is as if the viewer (through the artist’s vantage point) has just stumbled upon some locals and quietly intends to follow them to the secret beach.

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Lot 102

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