On View
Not on viewObject number1989/90.32
Back Apartment
Artist
Andrew Wyeth
(American, 1917-2009)
Date1961
Mediumwatercolor on paper
Dimensionsframe: 38 5/8 × 30 1/4 × 2 in. (98.1 × 76.8 × 5.1 cm)
image: 30 1/4 in. × 22 in. (76.8 × 55.9 cm)
image: 30 1/4 in. × 22 in. (76.8 × 55.9 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Genevieve U. Gilmore
Exhibition History"Paintings By American Masters: Fifth Anniversary Exhibition," KIA (Sept. 14 - Oct. 19, 1966).
"Andrew Wyeth: Tepera, Watercolors, Drybrush, Drawings 1938 into 1966," only at Art Institute of Chicago leg of travelling exhibtiion (Apr. 21 - June 4, 1967).
"Andrew Wyeth," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (July 16 - Sept.6, 1970).
"Harvest Exhibition," Brandywine River Museum (Sept. 6 - Nov. 24, 1974).
"Andrew Wyeth," Royal Academy of Arts, Diploma Gallery (June 7 - Aug. 30, 1980).
"Andrew Wyeth: From Public and Private Collections," The Canton Art Institute (Sept.15 - Nov. 3, 1985).
"A Century of Caring: One Hunderd Years of American Realism," KIA (May 18 - Aug. 3, 1986).
"A Gift to Kalamazoo: Selections from the Genevieve U. Gilmore Collection," KIA (Apr. 2 - May 5, 1991).
"70 Years, 70 Works from the KIA Permanent Collection," KIA (Nov. 19, 1994 - Feb. 10, 1995).
"Masterworks from the KIA Permanent Collection," Dennos Museum Center (Mar. 1997 - Feb. 1998); Midland Center for the Arts (Apr. - July, 1998).
"Views of the American Landscape: Works from the Permanent Collection," KIA (Dec. 21, 2002 - Jan. 12, 2003).
"The Wyeths: America's Artists," KIA Gallery 3 (Jan. 15 - Apr. 17, 2011).
"Something Waits Beneath It - Early Work by Andrew Wyeth, 1939-1969," Flint Institute of Arts (May 7 - Aug. 7, 2011).
"Lasting Legacy: A Collection for Kalamazoo," Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan (Sep. 6, 2014 - Jan. 4, 2015).Label TextIn Back Apartment, a weathered, white farmhouse faces autumn’s stark, bright light, unfiltered by leafless trees. A clutter of objects haphazardly spills out of the house and onto the back porch. Dark shadows further obscure these disorganized remnants of times past. In the foreground, two withered tomato plants clutch the last fruits, their season also past.
Wyeth’s paintings often show a close connection to his neighbors and familiar landscapes. His paintings of friends’ homes are sometimes understood as portraits, revealing aspects of the occupant’s character. Christian Sanderson, local history teacher and collector of historical artifacts, occupied three rooms in the back of this house, near Wyeth’s home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The bachelor’s rooms were choked with the accumulation of a lifetime of collecting. Today, the entire house is a museum, displaying Sanderson’s artifacts of local and national history.
