Redfield - The Richness and Beauty of Grey

Redfield – The Grey Veil (1930) – private collection

Edward Redfield was a hearty soul, and it seems to have paid off in a long life (1869 – 1965). He painted his paintings alla prima, en plein air. That's artspeak in Italian and French meaning ‘all at once’ and ‘on location’. His paintings are huge – often 6 feet in diameter and he is known to have started them in them morning and to have kept on painting until the whole thing was finished late in the evening. He lived and worked in the New Hope area of Pennsylvania (not far from Philadelphia) and always managed to capture that Pennsylvania air – plus a wonderful depth of space.

What I so especially enjoy about his work is the way he often divides his canvas up into areas of color. You can see that here -all the golds are in the middle and all the blues ae saved for the upper and lower horizontal bands with those deep dark evergreens serving as bridges between the two.


Gail Sauter – Journal: A Painter On Painting