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. 164, no. 268 (listed, not illustrated).

Note

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

Grey Brook belongs to a series of works Edward Redfield conceived and executed throughout the 1910s and 1920s, and which depict close-up views of brooks in a wintry, snow landscape. While they can be linked to John Henry Twachtman’s earlier (and muter) Hemlock series, Redfield’s brook scenes are larger in size, and more boldly executed as they speak to Redfield’s impetuous and vigorous style, which almost touches on abstraction.
Similar to the other works from the series, Grey Brook depicts the gentle flow of water as it tumbles over stones, and curves in-between snow-covered banks that are starting to melt and reveal a grassy bed ready to burst and expand. Similar to the famous Winter Wonderland, Redfield here uses a range of rapid and spontaneous strokes of paint to create a vibrant, “all-over pattern of activated paint” that suggests the awakening of mother nature as well as the sun’s warm gleam onto the water and the forest vegetation. As opposed to his other works in which he tries to capture the transient effects of light and weather however, here Redfield prompts the viewer to lose sight of the specific facts of the landscape so as to enhance the immediacy of the scene. In that regard, the artist appears to adopt a compositional strategy that can be found in Japanese prints, which also adopt a unique, close vantage point.

Condition Report

Contact Information

Lot 85

Lot Description

Provenance

Condition Report

Contact Information