August 9, 2023
We visited the Brandywine Museum of Art with our good friends, Dale and Joe. It is a beautiful museum in a bucolic location, housed in a converted nineteenth-century mill on the banks of the Brandywine Creek.
There was an exhibit of works by the Italian-American artist, Joseph Stella (1877-1945). Stella is best known for his futurist works, especially his paintings of the Brooklyn Bridge. However, this exhibit contained works which were decidedly more whimsical and included many floral and religious paintings.
The main reason that people come to the museum is to see the works of N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) and his talented offspring. N.C. had moved to the Brandywine Valley to study with the illustrator, Howard Pyle, and eventually settled in Chadds Ford in a home near to the museum. He went on to become one of America’s best known illustrators and the museum has a number of his most famous illustrations, as well as some of his beautiful paintings. The illustrations, in particular, looked decidedly modern and would have fit nicely into a contemporary comic or graphic novel.
Particularly poignant was this painting of a local farmer and his daughter. The daughter is looking back to the solitary lit window of the farmhouse where her mother lies on her deathbed.
N.C . and his wife Carolyn had a number of talented children and grandchildren whose works are also exhibited in the museum. We liked this self portrait by their daughter, Henriette.
And this portrait by their grandson, Jamie.
But the main attraction is Andrew, N.C. and Carolyn’s youngest child, who grew up to become one of America’s best-known twentieth-century artists.
Near to the museum is an old school house that N.C. had purchased to use as a studio. In 1940, Andrew and his wife Betsy moved into the house where they lived until the 1960s. After they moved out, Andrew continued to use it as a studio up until just before his death in 2009. It has been lovingly preserved by the Brandywine Museum of Art to resemble how it looked when the family lived there. It still houses the furnishings, library and collections acquired by the artist, as well as examples of the art materials he used throughout his career.
There was just enough time to fortify ourselves at the nearby Centreville Cafe and enjoy the view of the massive Stars and Stripes hanging on the house across the road before heading back to DC.
Mal and Lauren 