Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

1930

Edith B. Murphy (American, b. around 1888, active 1930s)
La Grange, Illinois, United States

This fantastical hanging envisions elements of writer Eugene Field’s poem “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” in which three sailors set sail in a wooden shoe “on a river of crystal light, / Into a sea of dew.” They cast their “nets of silver and gold” into the “twinkling foam” to catch herring fish while the “old moon laughed and sang.” Here, artist Edith Murphy emphasized the twinkling sensibility of the poem through the angled motifs that border the moonlit sea and suggest stars arching through the night sky and reflecting on the water’s surface.

Murphy made this work for her student and friend Nadine Newbill Jenner. As a small child, Jenner had a difficult time pronouncing her name, which came out as “Noddie,” and her father subsequently nicknamed her “Nod.”

Status: On View, Gallery 272
Department: Textiles

Artist: Edith B. Murphy
Title: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
Place: United States (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1930
Medium: Cotton and silk, weft-float-faced twill weave; fulled; indigo discharge dyeing
Inscriptions: Inscribed: Wynken / Blynken / and Nod
Dimensions: 110.9 × 94.6 cm (43 5/8 × 37 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Cynthia Lee Jenner in honor of her mother, Nadine Newbill Jenner
Reference Number: 2010.451

The artist, Lyon, IL, 1930 [this and the following according to correspondence from the donor, July 2009, in curatorial object file]; made for Nadine Newbill Jenner (died 1997), Kenilworth then Evanston, IL, from 1930s; by decent to her daughter, Cynthia Lee Jenner, New York and Evanston, IL, from 1997; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2010.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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