The Burning of Center Bridge by Edward Redfield

• What do you see in this painting? Describe the details.
• Where does your eye travel to first? Why?
• What time of day is it? What season is it? Explain.
• If you were standing in this landscape, how are you positioned?
• If you were in this painting, what kinds of sounds would you hear?
• If you could tell a story about this work, what would it be?

Among the New Hope impressionists painters, Edward Willis Redfield was the most decorated, winning more awards than any American artist except John Singer Sargent. Primarily a landscape painter, Redfield was acclaimed as the most “American” artist of the New Hope school because of his vigor and individualism. Redfield favored the technique of painting en plein air, that is, outdoors amidst nature. Tying his canvas to a tree, Redfield worked in even most the brutal weather. Painting rapidly, in thick, broad brush strokes, and without attempting preliminary sketches, Redfield typically completed his paintings in one sitting. Although Redfield is best known for his snow scenes, he painted several spring and summer landscapes, often set in Maine, where he spent his summers. He also painted cityscapes, including, most notably, Between Daylight and Darkness (1909), a atmospheric tonalist painting of the New York skyline in twilight.When Redfield stopped painting in the mid – 1940s he began producing hooked rugs and painted furniture. He died at the age of ninety-six in 1965.

Redfield was awarded a retrospective exhibition at the New Hope branch of the James A. Michener Art Museum, Edward Redfield: Just Value and Fine Seeing, in 2004, accompanied by a catalogue with the same title.