The Hunter

Artist Andrew Newell Wyeth (American, 1917-2009)

Date1943

DimensionsPainting: 33 × 33 7/8 in. (83.8 × 86 cm)
Frame: 39 1/8 × 40 1/4 × 1 1/2 in. (99.4 × 102.2 × 3.8 cm)

Mediumtempera on masonite

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineElizabeth C. Mau Bequest Fund

Object number

1946.25

Not on View

Label TextAdmired for the sharp-focus technique of his paintings, Andrew Wyeth studied with his father, N. C. Wyeth (1882–1945), a noted illustrator and painter. The Hunter, painted as an illustration for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, was the work that brought Wyeth to national attention. He uses a startling and unusual point of view—high in a Sycamore tree and peering down through the sparse leaves—to give this otherwise ordinary scene of a hunter in a fall landscape a heightened sense of drama. Instead of oil paint, Wyeth used the difficult medium of tempera, a paint made by mixing pigment with an egg medium. Because tempera dries very hard and very quickly, the artist must use the smallest of brushstrokes to build the composition, thus rendering the brushwork almost invisible. In addition, tempera added to the intensity and subtly of his colors. As a result, so real are the colors and textures of The Hunter, it seems almost possible to smell the crisp fall air and hear the footsteps of the hunter as he passes below.Published References

Saturday Evening Post, October 16, 1943, repr. on cover (col.).

“Additions to the Mau Collection,” Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, No. 114, December 1946.

Goodrich, L., "Andrew Wyeth," Art in America, XLIII, October 1955, p. 8, repr.

Corn, W., The Art of Andrew Wyeth, Greenwich, CT, 1973, pp. 135, 138, repr. p. 137 (col.).

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 114, pl. 224.

"La chronique des arts" (notice of American paintings catalogue), Gazette Des Beaux-Arts, vol. 97, no. 1348-1349, May-June, 1981, p. 12, repr. fig. 18.

Hubbard, Guy, Art for Elementary Classrooms, Englewood Cliffs, 1982, p. 259, repr. fig. G, p. 207.

Goldstein, Nathan, Design and Composition, Englewood Cliffs, 1989, pp. 147, 149, fig. 6.39.

Hubbard, Guy, "Foreshortening: Distortion and Diagonal Power," Arts & Activities, vol. 107, no. 5, June 1990, p. 30, repr. (col.).

Lauer, David A., Design Basics 3rd. ed., New York, 1990, p. 187, repr.

Rose, Ted, Discovering Drawing, Worcester, MA, 1995, repr. p. 98.

Adams, Henry, et al., Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, Easthampton, MA, Hudson Hills Press, 1995, p. 158, repr. (col.).

Schonberg, Marcia, “Traveling exhibit examines 10 centuries of American art,” News Journal, November 9, 1995, p. 8C.

Lauer, David A., Design Basics 4th ed., New York, 1995, p. 187, repr.

Mittler, Gene et. al, Introducing Art, New York, 1999, p. 110, fig. 6-8 (col.).

Wilmerding, John, et. al., Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic, New York, Rizzoli, 2005, p. 20, 35, 43, 61, col. repr. p. 137, pl. 14.

Stump, Douglas G.,“‘Memory and Magic’ on view,” Lebanon Daily News, May 7, 2006, p. 9B.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 316, repr. (col.).

Cateforis, David, ed., Rethinking Andrew Wyeth, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2014, p. 149, repr. det. (col.) p. 140, repr. (col.) p. 150.

Greenhill, Jennifer A., “Andrew Wyeth: A Vital Art Between the Lines,” review of Rethinking Andrew Wyeth, by David Cateforis, Art Journal 73, no. 4 (2014): p. 75–77.

Standring, Timothy J., Wyeth: Andrew & Jamie in the Studio, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2015, repr. (col.) cat. 24, p. 53.

Sharp, Kevin ed., Wild Spaces, Open Seasons: Hunting and Fishing in American Art, Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 2016, p. 150-152, repr. (col.) fig. 4.29, p. 151.

Exhibition History

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, 33rd Annual, 1946, no. 53.

Manchester, Currier Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Downer College; Rockland, Farnsworth Art Museum, 1951.

San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1955.

Davenport, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, 1959.

Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum; Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, et al. Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, 1995-1996.

Atlanta, High Museum of Art; Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic, November 12, 2005 - July 16, 2006.

Shelburne, Shelburne Museum, Wyeth Vertigo, June 22-October 27, 2013, pl. 27 (col.).

Denver, Denver Art Museum, "Wyeth: Andrew & Jamie in the Studio," November 8, 2015 - February 7, 2016.

Fort Worth, TX, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Wild Spaces, Open Seasons: Hunting and Fishing in American Art, September 24-December 17, 2017.