Wind from the Sea

Wind from the Sea was painted in an attic room of the Olson House in Cushing, Maine — the same weathered farmhouse that would become the setting for Christina's World the following year. Wyeth opened a rarely used window on a hot summer day to cool the room, began the painting, then had to wait two months for another westerly wind to return so he could continue studying the curtains in motion. The work is one of his earliest window paintings and is considered a quiet precursor to the more famous Christina's World. It entered the National Gallery of Art as a gift under the will of Charles H. Morgan, having first been on loan to the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College for 25 years.