 |
| Andrew Wyeth - Chadds Ford |
Andrew Newell Wyeth was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania in 1917. The youngest of 5 children, he was frail and home schooled. Wyeth's father, N.C., had become a celebrated illustrator by the 1920s and the family enjoyed guests such as writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and actress Mary Pickford.
Wyeth started drawing before he could read, and his father brought him into his studio for lessons when Andrew became a teenager. They were the only lessons the boy ever had. Through is father's tutelage, he mastered figure study and watercolor (and later egg tempera). He also studied art history, admiring the masters of the Renaissance and the American schools of painting.
In 1945, Andrew's father, N.C, along with his young nephew, Newell Convers Wyeth II were killed when their car stalled on the railroad tracks near their home.
Andrew is perhaps the most famous of the Wyeth dynasty. Predominately a regionalist, his favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in Chadds Ford and his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Preceded by his father and followed by his son, Jamie, the Wyeth family holds a special place in the leg of American art.
The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford is a testimonial legacy to the Wyeth family and the artists of southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware.
