Arts and Letters

Edward Wills Redfield was born in 1869 and died in 1965 at the age of ninety-six.

In the early nineteen hundreds, Redfield was celebrated from coast to coast, from Canada to the Gulf, as the great American painter of snow landscapes. Those of his pictures which I saw at this time and which I remember best, were exciting in bold simplicity of vision, brilliant execution and healthy vigor. But this was sixty or more years ago, a long span of time for any artist's reputation to survive in primal freshness. Since those days of innocence, the world of art has passed through a revolution in taste which has been tough and violent, and Redfield's repute has suffered accordingly. Yet the very violence and crudity of this revolution may indicate that another turnover in taste is on its way, which will render justice to Redfield's fine powers.

Redfield was raised on a farm in Bridgefield, Delaware. His father was a prosperous nurseryman and produce merchant, and the child Edward often rode with his father to Philadelphia, in the dark of pre-dawn, to sell his fine fruits and vegetables at the Dock Street Market. Edward developed ability in drawing at an early age and after some preliminary instruction, he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of fifteen. Five years later he was in Paris, in the company of old pals, Charles Grafly, Robert Henri, and A. Stirling Calder.

Redfield went to Paris intending to become a portrait painter, but this was not to be. The turning point in his career came on him at the village of Brolles on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau where he painted his first snow picture.

At Brolles he also met his future wife, Elise Delégent. He married Mlle. Elise in 1893. She proved an ideal artist's wife, sympathetic to his moods, brave in adversity, and a topnotch cook. They had six children. After the Redfields established a permanent home at Center Bridge in Bucks County, they led a busy, elemental, domestic life: she absorbed in house and children; he, when not painting, devoted to his gardens, producing flowers and vegetables of a quality which were the admiration and despair of all his friends.

In character Redfield was direct and keen, a good companion, a man of the hills and streams, a moderate fisherman, and a red-hot baseball fan. In 1916 Redfield was the unquestioned master-painter of the American winter landscape. He received all the important prizes at exhibitions and no self-respecting museum in the country was without one or more of his pictures. He was Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

Redfield was a "one-go" painter. He could finish a canvas 38 x 50 or 50 x 60 at one standing, in the snow. He is said never to have retouched them in his studio, and if literally true, his canvases owe much of their healthy brilliance to his method. He said, "Nature is good enough for me!"

John Folinsbee, who lived near him and knew him well, writes me: "I still see him, a bear of a man, bundled in several sweaters and coat, a cap with ear-tabs, felt boots and a brush stuck through a mitten, stamping back and forth on a ten-foot track in the snow with a huge canvas on his easel. In four or five hours the painting would be complete without any later retouching."

Folinsbee painted a portrait of Redfield in 1961 and as they talked together, Redfield spoke freely of the past, of art and artists. "The men he considered important American artists of the early 1900s were Tarbell, Benson, Paxton of the Boston school, Metcalf, Hassam, and particularly his close friends Henri and Garber, also Bellows, whose painting, 'Forty-two Kids' he considered a great accomplishment. He remained quite untouched by any modern painting of the avant-garde variety. One might say that his work had an affinity (at least visually) with that of the Norwegian, Fritz Thaulow, and our own Winslow Homer. He had complete confidence in his own vision and approach to painting. He was dominant, but a stickler for fair play. On art juries, he was known to be amazingly frank and honest according to his lights. I think of him as a great Pennsylvanian whose work will stand as a valued contribution to American art."

A recent appraiser of Redfield's art hails him as an important American Impressionist. Folinsbee thinks of him as a sturdy American Realist and I incline to this latter point of view; a breeze of health and strength flows through his brave canvases, leaving us true overtones which last in memory.

After Mrs. Redfield's death in 1947, Redfield's production of pictures dwindled and he occupied himself more and more in making hook-rugs and designing handmade furniture. Under the affectionate care of his children he continued to live in his home among the treasures collected during a long life, and he died there, as he had lived, with true dignity.