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DESCENDED IN THE MILLEN FAMILY
Lot 136
Frank Stick(1884-1966)"Wait for me, I'll be back"
26 September – 7 October 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsUS$4,000 - US$6,000
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Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer
Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
Frank Stick (1884-1966)
"Wait for me, I'll be back"
signed 'Frank Stick' (lower right); indistinctly inscribed (in pencil on the reverse)
oil on canvas
22 x 29 in. (55.9 x 73.7 cm)
Painted circa 1920.
signed 'Frank Stick' (lower right); indistinctly inscribed (in pencil on the reverse)
oil on canvas
22 x 29 in. (55.9 x 73.7 cm)
Painted circa 1920.
Footnotes
Provenance
The collection of Eli Moffatt Millen, editor at The Ladies' Home Journal (gifted directly from the artist, circa 1920).
By descent in the family of the previous to the present private collection.
Literature
Illustrated for Samuel Scoville, Jr., "The Devil", The Ladies' Home Journal, Philadelphia, January 1921, vol. 38, p. 171, as "Wait for me, I'll be back," he called grimly to the shadows as he zigzagged his way down the slope.).
N.B.
Artist, outdoorsman, and conservationist Frank Stick was part of a golden era of illustration and sporting artists that also included the likes of Frank Weston Benson, Aiden Lassell Ripley, Ogden Pleissner (also represented in the present sale), and N.C. Wyeth. Stick was born in Huron, South Dakota, and spent his adolescence immersed in the outdoors of Wisconsin and Montana. He fished, hunted, hiked, and worked as a mountain guide and a cook at a logging camp. At around age 20, he began to write and illustrate stories about his hunting and fishing adventures for sporting magazines, recalling that, when he was outdoors, "all the time I studied the forests and lakes and mountains, and the ways of the creatures that inhabited them, and put my impressions down with pencil and brush".
In 1906, at the invitation of Howard Pyle, Stick spent three years studying at the Brandywine School of Art in Delaware alongside N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and W.H.D. Koerner. He became good friends with Koerner in particular, and remained close with him throughout his life. Stick subsequently returned to northern Wisconsin and lived in a small cabin on Squirrel Lake, before moving in 1917 to New Jersey and building a home and studio on Lake Deal. He continued to produce stories and illustrations for some of the most popular magazines of the time, including Field & Stream, Rod and Gun, Sports Afield, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Ladies Home Journal until 1929, when he became disillusioned with the world of commercial art. His worry was that he was becoming a painter rather than an artist: "The artist develops from within. He is ruled by spirit. The painter works from a technical knowledge entirely". He subsequently swore off commercial work for the rest of his life, although he would always continue to paint and exhibit for his own and others' enjoyment.
The present work was painted during Stick's final decade as a commercial artist. It depicts a moment from the story "The Devil" by the naturalist and author Samuel Scoville, Jr. (1872-1950). The story recounts the tale of Pennsylvania trapper Dan Treaster, who defies common wisdom by venturing into the dangerous Seven Mountains in the dead of winter. Sure enough, it is not long before he is outsmarted by a wolverine (called a carcajou among French-speaking trappers), who chews his rifle apart, leaving him unarmed and vulnerable. In the present illustration, Dan has been sheltering in a hunting cabin in the mountains for a few days. Rather than spend another night in the cabin, he decides to venture out, even though just a few moments of daylight remain. As he leaves, he says into the shadows, "Wait for me; I'll be back."