N. C. Wyeth House and Studio | |
Location | Murphy Road Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, United States |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°51′54″N75°34′42″W / 39.86500°N 75.57833°W |
Area | 18 acres (7.3 ha) |
Built | 1911 |
Architect | William D. Brincklé; et al. |
Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 97001680 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | December 9, 1997 [1] |
Designated NHLD | December 9, 1997 [2] |
The N. C. Wyeth House and Studio is a historic house museum and artist's studio on Murphy Road in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, United States. [3] Beginning with its construction in 1911, it served as the principal home and studio of artist N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945). It was restored to its original appearance around the time of his death. The property is managed by the Brandywine River Museum, which offers tours. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1997. [2] [4]
The Wyeth House and Studio are located in a rural-residential area southeast of the village center of Chadds Ford, on the south side of Murphy Road. Set on about 18 acres (7.3 ha) of land are the main house, art studio, barn, and pump house. The property is bounded on the north by Murphy Road and the south by Brandywine Creek. The house is set on a ridge that is part of the Brandywine Battlefield area, having been occupied by Continental Army troops during the 1777 Battle of Brandywine. The house is a two-story Colonial Revival structure, designed for Wyeth by William Draper Brinkle and built in 1911. It was enlarged in 1926 to provide additional space for Wyeth's growing family. The studio is a large L-shaped single-story structure, built in stages in 1911, 1923, and 1931. The main studio space is distinguished by a large north-facing Palladian window. [4]
N.C. Wyeth was renowned as one of the leading illustrators of the first half of the 20th century, his works appearing in Harper's, Scribner's, McClure's, and the Saturday Evening Post. Wyeth drew much inspiration from the landscape around this property, which influenced many of his rural landscape works. He purchased this property with funds made from his first major commission, a series of illustrations for an edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island . [4]
After Wyeth died in 1945, his wife lived in the house until 1973, after which their daughter, Carolyn Wyeth, lived there and painted in the studio until her death in 1994. The Brandywine River Museum then took possession of the property and began restoration. It has been restored to its state as of 1945, and includes paintings left unfinished by Wyeth at the time of his death, and family artifacts that never left the property. [4]
In 2012, N.C. Wyeth's studio was opened to the public for the first time since his death. [5] The museum now offers guided tours of the property. Accessibility was further increased in 2017 with the opening of new walking trails between Potts Meadow, the Andrew Wyeth Studio, and the N.C. Wyeth House and Studio. [6]
Henriette Wyeth Hurd was an American artist noted for her portraits and still life paintings. The eldest daughter of illustrator N.C. Wyeth, she studied painting with her father and brother Andrew Wyeth at their home and studio in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
Andrew Newell Wyeth was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He believed he was also an abstractionist, portraying subjects in a new, meaningful way. The son of N. C. Wyeth and father of Jamie Wyeth, he was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. James H. Duff explores the art and lives of the three men in An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art. Raised with an appreciation of nature, Wyeth took walks that fired his imagination. Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, and King Vidor's The Big Parade (1925) inspired him intellectually and artistically. Wyeth featured in a documentary The Metaphor in which he discussed Vidor's influence on the creation of his works of art, like Winter 1946 and Portrait of Ralph Kline. Wyeth was also inspired by Winslow Homer and Renaissance artists.
Newell Convers Wyeth, known as N. C. Wyeth, was an American painter and illustrator. He was a student of Howard Pyle and became one of America's most well-known illustrators. Wyeth created more than 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books — 25 of them for Scribner's, the Scribner Classics, which is the body of work for which he is best known. The first of these, Treasure Island, was one of his masterpieces and the proceeds paid for his studio. Wyeth was a realist painter at a time when the camera and photography began to compete with his craft. Sometimes seen as melodramatic, his illustrations were designed to be understood quickly. Wyeth, who was both a painter and an illustrator, understood the difference, and said in 1908, "Painting and illustration cannot be mixed—one cannot merge from one into the other."
Brandywine Creek is a tributary of the Christina River in southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware in the United States. The Lower Brandywine is 20.4 miles (32.8 km) long and is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River with several tributary streams. The East Branch and West Branch of the creek originate within 2 miles (3 km) of each other on the slopes of Welsh Mountain in Honey Brook Township, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of their confluence.
Chadds Ford Township is an affluent township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Philadelphia.
James Browning Wyeth is an American realist painter, son of Andrew Wyeth, and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He was raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, and is artistic heir to the Brandywine School tradition — painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware and Pennsylvania, portraying its people, animals, and landscape.
The Brandywine Museum of Art is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine Creek. The museum showcases the work of Andrew Wyeth, a major American realist painter, and his family: his father N.C. Wyeth, illustrator of many children's classics; his sister Ann Wyeth McCoy, a composer and painter; and his son Jamie Wyeth, a contemporary American realist painter.
Chadds Ford is a census-designated place (CDP) in Delaware and Chester counties, Pennsylvania, United States, comprising the unincorporated communities of Chadds Ford and Chadds Ford Knoll. It was first listed as a CDP prior to the 2020 census.
The Brandywine School was a style of illustration—as well as an artists colony in Wilmington, Delaware and in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, near the Brandywine River—both founded by artist Howard Pyle (1853–1911) at the end of the 19th century. The works produced there were widely published in adventure novels, magazines, and romances in the early 20th century. Pyle’s teachings would influence such notable illustrators as N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Harvey Dunn, and Norman Rockwell. Pyle himself would come to be known as the "Father of American Illustration." Many works related to the Brandywine School may be seen at the Brandywine River Museum of Art, in Chadds Ford.
The Christian C. Sanderson Museum, or simply Sanderson Museum, is a museum of historical artifacts in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the Chadds Ford Historic District. The items in the museum were collected over many years by Christian C. Sanderson (1882–1966), a teacher, musician, poet, actor, writer, traveler, radio commentator and local historian. The Sanderson Museum was founded in 1967 by his friend and Brandywine artist Andrew Wyeth.
The Brandywine Battlefield Historic Site is a National Historical Landmark. The historic park is owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, on 52 acres (210,000 m2), near Chadds Ford, Delaware County, Pennsylvania in the United States.
Historic Artists' Homes and Studios program is a network of about 30 artists' homes and studios in the United States. The network of house museums is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
George Alexis Weymouth, better known as Frolic Weymouth, was an American artist, whip or stager, and conservationist. He served on the United States Commission of Fine Arts in the 1970s and was a member of the Du Pont family.
The Chads House, which was built by John Wyeth Jr. for John Chads, is located in Chadds Ford, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The house was built after 1712 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 11, 1971. John Chad's widow, Elizabeth, stayed in the house while it was in the line of fire during the Battle of Brandywine. The city of Chadds Ford relied on the spring ford on the property, and thus the city was named after John Chads.
Carolyn Wyeth, daughter of N.C. Wyeth and sister of Andrew Wyeth, was a well-known artist in her own right. Her hometown was Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She worked and taught out of N. C. Wyeth House and Studio. Her nephew, Jamie Wyeth was one of her students.
The Barns-Brinton House is an historic brick house located between Hamorton and Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania in Pennsbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. It was constructed in 1714 by William Barns, who operated it as a tavern from 1722 until his death in 1731.
The Kuerner Farm, also known as Ring Farm, is an historic farm which is located in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. It is notable for its association with artist Andrew Wyeth, who created about one-third of his work, more than 1,000 paintings and drawings, on subjects he found there during a span of seventy-seven years.
Chadds Ford Historic District is a national historic district located at Chadds Ford Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The district includes 17 contributing buildings in Chadds Ford village. Notable buildings include the Chads Ford Inn (1807-1810), Merchant Mill (1864), a row of houses built between 1840 and 1850, the bridge across Brandywine Creek, and the Christian C. Sanderson Museum. Located in the district are the separately listed Chad House and N. C. Wyeth House and Studio.
Reception to Washington on April 21, 1789, at Trenton on his way to New York to Assume the Duties of the Presidency of the United States is a large-scale oil painting completed in 1930 by American artist N. C. Wyeth of president-elect George Washington at his reception in Trenton, New Jersey during his journey to the 1789 inauguration in New York City. The mural was commissioned by the First Mechanics National Bank of Trenton, now part of Wells Fargo. It has been on display in the lobby of Thomas Edison State University since 2013. Wells Fargo donated the painting to the university in 2019, the most expensive gift ever given to the university.
American composer, pianist and painter Ann Wyeth McCoy was the youngest daughter of artist-illustrator N.C. Wyeth and the fourth of his five children. She was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Ann had a life-long interest in antique porcelain dolls, which began in 1923 when she received her first doll as a gift from her parents on her eighth birthday. Each subsequent birthday and Christmas during her childhood, she received another doll. From 1972 to 2004 her doll collection was exhibited at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford during the Christmas holidays.
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(help) and Accompanying 19 photos, exterior and interior, from 1911, 1996, and 1997, 1911. (6.38 MB)