For three generations, the Wyeths have created art that captures the imagination and admiration of a wide audience. This exhibition presents more than sixty paintings, drawings, and illustrations by N.C. (Newell Converse) Wyeth, his daughter Henriette Wyeth, his son Andrew Wyeth, and his grandson Jamie Wyeth. The works— from the early 1900s to the early 2000s—reveal the breadth of the Wyeth family's creative output and illuminate both common themes within the works and the artists' individual styles.
N.C. WYETH (1882—1945) has long been considered one of the nation's leading illustrators. In the early 1900s, he studied with illustrator Howard Pyle in Delaware. In 1911, he built a house and studio in nearby Chadds Fords, Pennsylvania. Later, he bought a sea captain's house in Maine and in 1931 built a small studio, which he shared with his son Andrew and his daughters. The exhibition includes illustrations for books by Robert Louis Stevenson and Washington Irving as well as historical scenes, seascapes, and landscapes.
HENRIETTE WYETH (1907—1997) was the oldest child of N.C. Wyeth and his wife, Carolyn Bockius. A professional artist, she married one of her father's pupils and settled in the Southwest. Her paintings represent a personal response to her subjects and her paintings of flowers and children express the fragile nature of beauty and life. Like her father, she painted primarily in oil and incorporated a wide range of color into her work. The exhibition includes examples of her portaits of family members and still life paintings.
ANDREW WYETH (1917—2009) remains one of the United States' most popular artists, and his paintings follow the American Realist tradition, which includes Winslow Homer. He was influenced by the works of Homer, whose watercolor technique he admired, as well as by the art of Howard Pyle and his father. While Andrew paints recognizable images, his use of line and space often imbue his works with an underlying abstract quality. The exhibition includes important works from the 1970s and 1980s as well as more recent paintings.
JAMIE WYETH (b. 1946), like his father and grandfather, has painted subjects of everyday life, in particular the landscape, animals, and people of Pennsylvania and Maine. In contrast to his father—who painted with watercolor, drybrush, and tempera—Jamies works in oil and mixed media, creating lush, painterly surfaces. Eighteen paintings represent all periods of his career.
