Edward W. Redfield: Just Values and Fine Seeing

by Constance Kimmerle

Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and arguably the stylistic leader of the Pennsylvania Impressionist school of painting, Edward W. Redfield (1869-1965) was fascinated by the forces that colored an individual's reaction to nature. His paintings reflected an engagement with the American experience, in an unsentimental impressionist style. A painter of great immediacy, Redfield understood that art was an expressive activity rooted in sensibility and feeling, and advised other artists, "See it, seize it, remember it--then get out and paint it."The phenomenal popularity of Redfield from 1900 to 1920 cannot be fully understood without considering how his life and work were viewed as the embodiment of a national spirit of the progress of America. Redfield's paintings embodied the rawness and energy of America during a period of transformation from a predominantly agrarian to an industrialized capitalist nation. Not only did these bold, vibrant pictures provide welcome images of the natural world, they exuded a spirit of personal authenticity, and stability for an audience in search of these qualities.With extraordinary access to the rich collection of the Redfield family archives, Constance Kimmerle is able to broaden the understanding of the artist and his work. Through the use of primary sources including Redfield's personal letters and his journal, Kimmerle creates a unique and intimate portrait of one of America's greatest impressionist painters.

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2004

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am sure I passed right by Edward Redfield's paintings many times without really seeing them as I walked around the Philadelphia Museum of Art over the years, but when I took my daughter there last month and showed her "pretty" paintings that I thought might immediately appeal to her 6-year old eyes I was the one stopped in his tracks by Redfield's direct and endlessly evocative paintings of snowy woodlands and small towns. She actually didn't care for them (preferring instead Mary Cassatt).

This is a straightforward book on the artist, offering his life in brief and a substantial selection of his paintings. He comes off as a no-nonsense guy who simply loved to be out in nature painting what was before his eyes. He was very popular in his day, winning many awards and medals, and was one of the first, if not the first, artist to move from the city and establish a home and studio around New Hope, PA. This was in the late 19th century. There he lived very rustically with his wife right on the Delaware River. He furnished his house with furniture fashioned with his own hands from driftwood that washed up near his house. There is a photograph included of him picking through an enormous pile of lumber on the shore. I found the photograph very strange and inexplicable. I do not know why so much lumber was washing up onto the shore, but he certainly made the most of it. Their house flooded every spring when the river rose. These little details, along with the paintings, were all I needed to form a full and rich image of Redfield in my mind.



Here is a larger image of the above.