The Dying Sea Gull

Maker Elihu Vedder (American, 1836 - 1923)

Collections

American Paintings Selections

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1879

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensions16 3/4 x 33 1/2 in. (42.5 x 85.1 cm.) frame: 30 × 47 × 3 3/4 in. (76.2 × 119.4 × 9.5 cm.)

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation

Status

On view

Label TextElihu Vedder often painted scenes of tragedy and death. In The Dying Sea Gull, one bird from a flock of herring gulls has fallen to the beach. Herring gulls mate for life, and the dying bird's mate has remained with it, while their flock flies away in the distance. The painting's poignant meditation on the loss of family had particular resonance for Vedder: two of his children had died before he painted this image.

To create paintings such as The Dying Sea Gull, Vedder combined observation of nature with fantasy. A similar seascape appears in several of Vedder's paintings and is most likely based on a beach in Italy where he lived much of his adult life. While the settings are from Vedder's experience, the artist's subjects came from his imagination, memory, or literary sources. Vedder's merging of reality and invention relates his work to the modern art movements of Symbolism and Surrealism.

Object number83.8.50