N.C. Wyeth Biography | Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art

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N.C. Wyeth, Self-portrait, 1913, oil on canvas. Private collection. Newell Convers Wyeth was born on October 22, 1882, in Needham, Massachusetts. Growing up on a farm, he developed a deep love of nature. His mother, the daughter of swiss immigrants, encouraged his early artistic inclinations in the confront of opposition from his father, a descendant of the beginning Wyeth to arrive in the New World in the mid-17th century. His beget encouraged a more hardheaded use of his talents, and young Convers attended Mechanic Arts High School in Boston through May 1899, concentrating on drafting. With his mother ‘s subscribe he transferred to Massachusetts Normal Art School and there instructor Richard Andrew urged him toward example. He studied with Eric Pape and Charles W. Reed and then painted with George L. Noyes in Annisquam, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1901 .
On the advice of two friends, artists Clifford Ashley and Henry Peck, Wyeth decided to travel to Wilmington, Delaware, in October 1902, to join the Howard Pyle School of Art. Howard Pyle, one of the country ‘s most celebrated illustrators, left a teaching position at Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia to open his own school of exemplification in Wilmington. Pyle was an cheer teacher and Wyeth an heedful pupil. The master emphasized the use of dramatic effects in painting and the importance of healthy, personal cognition of one ‘s submit, teachings Wyeth quickly assimilated and employed throughout his career. The astute young homo recognized the value of Pyle ‘s direction, writing to his mother equitable after his arrival, “ the writing call on the carpet … opened my eyes more than any lecture I always heard. ” ( BJW, p. 21 ) In less than five months, Wyeth successfully submitted a screen exemplification to the Saturday Evening Post.

Following Pyle ‘s maxim to paint only from know, Wyeth made three trips between 1904 and 1906 to the american West. He spent much of these trips plainly absorbing the western experience which allowed him to paint images that would place him among the top illustrators of his day. By 1907, Wyeth was heralded in Outing Magazine as “ one of our greatest, if not our greatest, painter of american outdoor life. ” His pictures had appeared in many of the most popular magazines of the menstruation, such as Century, Harper ‘s Monthly, Ladies ‘ Home Journal, McClure ‘s, Outing, and Scribner ‘s .

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  Eric Pape, Rip Van Winkle, ca. 1915, gouache on paper. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, the Caroline Gussmann Keller Fund .
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  George L. Noyes, Annisquam Landscape, ca. 1900-1910, oil on canvas. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, Museum Volunteers ‘ Purchase Fund,1998 .
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  N.C. Wyeth in his Studio, ca. 1903-04

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  Saturday Evening Post cover, with exemplification by N.C. Wyeth February 21, 1903. Brandywine River Mueseum of Art, Walter and Leonore Annenberg Research Center
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  N.C. Wyeth in his western “rig,” 1904 by unknown photographer. Photograph courtesy of the Wyeth Family Archives.

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  N.C. Wyeth, In the Crystal Depths, oil on canvas, 1906. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art

In 1906, Wyeth married Carolyn Brenneman Bockius of Wilmington. The pair lived for a abruptly time in the city, but moved in 1908 to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 10 miles north of Wilmington along the Brandywine Creek. Chadds Ford had been the locate of Pyle ‘s summer school, and the roll hills and sycamore trees of the Brandywine Valley had already exerted a profound influence on Wyeth, subduing his enthusiasm for the harsh and tumble west. In 1911, the Wyeths purchased 18 acres of property in Chadds Ford, not far from a Revolutionary War battlefield. The proximity appealed to the artist ‘s abiding love of history. immediately the Wyeths set about to build a house and studio. They would raise five talented children on this property and the valley landscape would become about sacred to the preempt New Englander. In 1911, the print theater of Charles Scribner ‘s Sons engaged Wyeth to illustrate Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, his first commission in Scribner ‘s popular series of classic stories. The 17 paintings that make up the set are masterpieces of american exemplification. Their size and scale, strange in illustrations of the time period, give the paintings a heroic verse quality that is apparent even in the greatly shrink reproductions. Within the set up of illustrations, Wyeth brilliantly combined action and character survey, enriching the story beyond the text. action and character study are united in each paint to further the narrative beyond the text. In every sail, his superb sense of coloring material and his ability to mix painterly passages with authentic detail prove him a master of the art. complex compositions and his nice use of intense light contrasted with deep shadow contribute to a palpable dramatic tension implicit in in the paintings. These pictures made the Wyeth-illustrated edition of Treasure Island a favored of generations of readers. The success of Treasure Island insured Wyeth a hanker career with Scribner ‘s, illustrating in succeeding years many classical stories. Among the most celebrated titles are Kidnapped ( 1913 ), The Black Arrow ( 1916 ), The Boy ‘s King Arthur ( 1917 ), The Mysterious Island ( 1918 ), The last of the Mohicans ( 1919 ), The Deerslayer ( 1925 ), and The Yearling ( 1939 ). He besides created illustrations for other publishers, for books such as Robin Hood ( David McKay, 1917 ) ; Robinson Crusoe ( Cosmopolitan, 1920 ) ; Rip Van Winkle ( David McKay, 1921 ) ; Men of Concord ( Houghton-Mifflin, 1936 ) ; and Trending Into Maine ( Little, Brown, 1938 ) .

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  N.C. Wyeth, Jim Hawkins Leaves Home, anoint on canvas, 1911, illustration for Treasure Island. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, acquisition made possible through the generosity of Patricia Wiman Hewitt, 1994 .
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  N.C. Wyeth, All day he hung round the cove, or upon the cliffs, with a brass telescope, 1911. vegetable oil on Canvas, Illustration for Robert Lewis Stevenson, Treasure Island, New York : Charles Scribner ‘s Sons, 1911, Bequest of Gertrude Haskell Britton, 1992
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  N.C. Wyeth, endpaper illustration for final of the Mohicans, oil on sail, 1919. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, given in memory of Raymond Platt Dorland by his children, 1973 .
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  N.C. Wyeth, They were now fighting above the knees in the spume and bubble of the breakers, oil on canvas, 1916, illustration for The Black Arrow. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. S. Hallock du Pont, Jr., 1992.

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Despite his fame as an illustrator, Wyeth yearned to be known as a painter. The differentiation between painting and exemplification was an crucial one, with exemplification carrying a dyslogistic intension that Wyeth felt keenly all his life. even though the commission knead earned him income to support his family, he tried to escape the confines of textual limitations with personal paintings that included landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. From lyrical landscapes in an impressionist style to mighty portraits of fishermen that recall the work of the american Regionalist artists, Wyeth experimented throughout his career with a wide-eyed assortment of subjects and styles. however, he never did attain the personal satisfaction or public recognition that he sought. Wyeth besides enjoyed a national reputation as a muralist. His earliest mural commissions ( Hotel Utica, Utica, New York, 1911, and Traymore Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1915 ) have been destroyed. In 1920 he created two Civil War struggle scenes for the Missouri State Capitol ( Jefferson City ), the first in a long note of commissions he undertook in the 1920s and 1930s. Among them are murals for the Federal Reserve Bank, Boston ; Westtown School, Westtown, Pennsylvania ; First National Bank of Boston ; Hotel Roosevelt and Fanklin Savings Bank, both in New York City ; Hubbard Hall, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. ; First Mechanics National Bank, Trenton, New Jersey ; and Wilmington Savings Fund Society, Wilmington, Delaware. Many of these murals depict historic events, others such as The Giant for Westtown School and The Apotheosis of the Family have allegorical themes. In 1940 Wyeth accepted a commission from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York City, for an ambitious dodge illustrating Pilgrim life. The second phase of this cycle was incomplete at his death and finished by his son Andrew and son-in-law John McCoy. Most of Wyeth ‘s murals have survived, but many are no longer at their original sites. Throughout his career Wyeth created images for magazine advertisements and calendars. respective paintings commissioned by the Cream of Wheat Company in 1906-07 rank along with his best western work. Later pictures advertised products of the american Tobacco Company, Aunt Jemima, Blue Buckle Overalls, Coca-Cola, General Electric, and Steinway & Sons, among others. For companies such as New York Life Insurance, Morrell & Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad he produced calendar and bill poster images. During both World Wars, Wyeth contributed patriotic images to politics and private agencies such as the American Red Cross .

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  N.C. Wyeth at work on mural for First Mechanics National Bank, Trenton, New Jersey, ca. 1930. Photograph by Edward J. S. Seal. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art
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  N.C. Wyeth, William Penn. world of Vision. courage. action, petroleum on sail, 1933. collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, endow of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1997 .
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  N.C. Wyeth, American Red Cross Poster, vegetable oil on canvas ca. 1918. private collection .
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  Ringing Out Liberty, poster and calendar design by N.C. Wyeth for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, ca. 1929. Calendar illustration collection of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, Walter and Leonore Annenberg Research Center

N.C. Wyeth died at a railroad hybridization in Chadds Ford in 1945, when an oncoming train hit his car. He had lived farseeing enough to see his children excel in talents he had nurtured—Nathaniel as an inventor ; Henriette, Carolyn and Andrew as painters ; and Ann as a musician and composer. Andrew Wyeth ‘s son James, besides a painter, continues his grandfather ‘s bequest.

The Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, contains the largest collection of N.C. Wyeth ‘s artwork, and offers tours of his Chadds Ford home and studio apartment. The museum, in conjunction with the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and Scala Publishers, Ltd., published  N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings in 2008. Visitors to the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, can see many of the paintings Wyeth did of the Maine coast, where he spent summers from 1920 to 1945. The Delaware Art Museum, the New York Public Library, and the Philadelphia Free Library reserve significant collections of his paintings. The Wyeths, The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945, edited by Betsy James Wyeth ( Gambit, 1971 : reprinted, Brandywine River Museum of Art, 2008 ) is a collection of excerpts from Wyeth ‘s substantial correspondence. In N.C. Wyeth, A Biography ( Knopf, 1998 ), David Michaelis presents a exhaustive account of his life .
Credits

( 1 ) N.C. Wyeth, Self-portrait, 1913, vegetable oil on canvas. private collection.

( 2 ) N.C. Wyeth on his Chadds Ford property, ca. 1943. Photograph by Edward J. S. Seal, courtesy of the Wyeth Family Archives.

( 3 ) Eric Pape, Rip Van Winkle, ca. 1915, gouache on paper. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, the Caroline Gussmann Keller Fund.

( 4 ) George L. Noyes, Annisquam Landscape, ca. 1900-1910, oil on canvas. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, Museum Volunteers ‘ Purchase Fund,1998.

( 5 ) Saturday Evening Post cover, with example by N.C. Wyeth February 21, 1903.

( 6 ) N.C. Wyeth in his studio, ca. 1903-04, by strange photographer. Photograph collection of Alan C. Wasserman. ( 7 ) N.C. Wyeth in his westerly “ rig, ” 1904 by unknown photographer. Photograph courtesy of the Wyeth Family Archives.

( 8 ) N.C. Wyeth, In the Crystal Depths, petroleum on canvas, 1906. solicitation of the Brandywine River Museum.

( 9 ) N.C. Wyeth, The Studio, ca. 1915, petroleum on sail. private collection.

( 10. ) N.C. Wyeth House, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

( 11 ) N.C. Wyeth, Captain Bill Bones, 1911, oil on analyze, illustration for Treasure Island. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, endowment of Mrs.Brigham Britton, 1992.

( 12 ) N.C. Wyeth, Jim Hawkins Leaves Home, oil on canvas, 1911, illustration for Treasure Island. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, acquisition made possible through the generosity of Patricia Wiman Hewitt, 1994.

( 13 ) N.C. Wyeth, endpaper exemplification for last of the Mohicans, anoint on analyze, 1919. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, given in memory of Raymond Platt Dorland by his children, 1973.

( 14 ) N.C. Wyeth, They were now fighting above the knees in the spume and bubble of the breakers, vegetable oil on canvas, 1916, example for The Black Arrow. solicitation of the Brandywine River Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. S. Hallock du Pont, Jr., 1992 ( 15 ) N.C. Wyeth, Chadds Ford Landscape-July 1909, vegetable oil on canvas, 1909. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, give of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wyeth, 1970.

( 16 ) N.C. Wyeth, even Life with Onions, oil on canvass, ca. 1931. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, purchased in memory of Clement R. Hoopes on behalf of his family and friends, 1980.

( 17 ) N.C. Wyeth, William Penn. man of Vision. courage. action, anoint on canvass, 1933. collection of the Brandywine River Museum, endowment of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1997.

( 18 ) N.C. Wyeth at oeuvre on mural for First Mechanics National Bank, Trenton, New Jersey, ca. 1930. Photograph by Edward J. S. Seal. collection of the Brandywine River Museum

( 19 ) N.C. Wyeth, American Red Cross Poster, petroleum on canvass ca. 1918. individual solicitation.

( 20 ) Ringing Out Liberty, post horse and calendar blueprint by N.C. Wyeth for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, ca. 1929. Calendar illustration collection of the Brandywine River Museum .