The Letter

Artist Thomas Wilmer Dewing (American, 1851-1938)

Date1908

Dimensions19 5/8 × 24 in. (49.8 × 61 cm)

Mediumoil on panel

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Florence Scott Libbey

Object number

1912.6

Not on View

Label TextWhat emotion does color evoke for you in this work? Thomas Wilmer Dewing was greatly inspired by Tonalism, an American art movement that emerged in the late 1800s. Practitioners of Tonalism paired similar colors to convey poetic mood and quiet contemplation. Dewing’s preferred vehicle to express “the ascent of inwardness in the Victorian Age” are through depictions of seated ethereal women. Very few architectural details or interruptions obscure the viewer’s appreciation of the color, while the distance and physical space between the women imposes an awareness of depth. Dewing was born in Boston, trained in Paris, taught in New York City, and summered in the idyllic Cornish Art Colony in New Hampshire. His paintings predominantly speak to the changing socio-economic climate of the Gilded Age and the increase in industrialization and urbanization of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dewing preferred to paint scenes devoid of the suggestion of noise and bustle created by fast-paced modern life and instead to instill his images with points of reflection and reverie.Published ReferencesBryant, Lorinda, American Pictures and Their Painters, New York, John Lane, 1917.

Bryant, Lorinda, What Pictures to See in America, New York, 1925, pp. 226-227, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 41, pl. 112.

Betsky, Celia, "In the artist's studio," Portfolio, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan./Feb. 1982, p. 36, repr.

Blau, Douglas, Fictions: a Selection of Pictures from the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, New York, Kent Fine Art and Curt Marcus Gallery, 1987, no. 84, repr. [not an actual exhibition].

Hiesinger, Ulrich W., Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters, Munich, 1991, p. 166, fig. 50, p. 163.

Hobbs, Susan A. and Barbara Dayer Gallati, "Thomas Wilmer Dewing, an artist against the grain," Antiques, vol. 149, no. 3, March 1996, p. 426, pl. XIV (col.).

Pyne, Kathleen, Art and the Higher Life: Painting and Evolutionary Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century America, Austin, TX, 1996, p. 179-180, fig. 4.21, p. 178.

Exhibition HistorySt. Louis, City Art Museum of St. Louis, Third Annual Exhibition of Selected Paintings by American Artists, 1908, repr. no. 50.

Seattle, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, 1909, no. 365.

Saginaw Museum, An Exhibition of American Painting from Colonial Times until Today, 1948, no. 15.

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings Acquired by the Toledo Museum, 1901-1951.

San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Color of Mood, American Tonalism 1880-1910, 1972, no. 14.

Bloomfield Hills, Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Genre, Portraits and Still Life Painting in America, 1973, no. 18, p. 10.

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776-1976, 1976, no. 34, repr.

New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, American Paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art, 1986.

Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; St. Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum; Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art; Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, 1995-1996, p. 85, repr. (col.).

Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum; Washington, National Museum of American Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; The Art of Thomas Wilmer Dewing: Beauty Reconfigured, 1996, no. 42, pp. 40, 59, 76, 77, 175, 197, n. 90-99, repr. (col.). (Detroit only)