ANDREW WYETH | DRY WELL (RAIN BARREL)

Mrs. Ledyard Cogswell Jr., Loudonville, New York, by 1962

Cornelia Cogswell Rossi, New Haven, Connecticut, 1985 (by descent)

Sold: Independent Appraisers and Auctioneers, Pawling, New York, April 2004

Spanierman Gallery, New York, 2004 (probably acquired at the above sale) 

Private collection, California, 2005 (acquired from the above; sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 4, 2013, lot 11)

Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

"RAIN BARREL," The National Observer, August 31, 1962, illustrated, n.p.

"At the Wyeth Preview," Arizona Daily Star, March 19, 1963, illustrated, n.p.

Betsy James Wyeth, Christina's World, Boston, Massachusetts, 1982, p. 172, illustrated

Andrew Wyeth executed Dry Well in 1958 on the Olson property in Cushing, Maine. According to Wyeth, “The pump in the Olsons’ pantry drew water from a cistern below the floor. Rainwater pouring off the high roofs above was fed by troughs and downspouts into this cistern. For weeks on end no rain fell. Alvaro put a big barrel on a drag, towed it to the spring in the pasture, covered the barrel full of water with a canvas and hauled it back to the house. This was their well the summer of the drought” (as quoted in Andrew Wyeth, Meriden, Connecticut, 1970, p. 185).