The Broken Wall
ca. 1926
20th Century
31 1/4 in. x 45 in.
Wilson Henry Irvine,
American,
(February 28, 1869–August 21, 1936)
Object Type:
Painting
Medium and Support:
oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Florence Griswold Museum; Gift of George M. Yeager
Accession Number:
2010.3
The director and curators of the Florence Griswold Museum have long admired this painting. It was prominently featured in the Museum’s Wilson Henry Irvine retrospective in 1998. In the accompanying catalogue, art historian Harold Spencer hailed The Broken Wall as “a quintessential winter landscape and one of Irvine’s most effective and complex compositions.” He noted how the composition leads one’s eyes through the opening in the tree line and the break in the stone wall into a radiant sun-filled meadow. Irvine offers us a chance to immerse ourselves deep in the backcountry of New England.
The frame is a reproduction of a Stanford White design.
During the course of planning for this exhibition, we were thrilled to learn that the painting’s owner, George M. Yeager, had decided to donate this picture to the permanent collection of the Florence Griswold Museum.