ESCAPE TO N.C. WYETH'S MAINE AT
THE BRANDYWINE RIVER MUSEUM
(May 2003, #014)


Beginning May 31 and continuing through September 1, visitors to the Brandywine River Museum can take a virtual vacation as they view an exhibition of paintings and drawings inspired by N.C. Wyeth's annual trips to Maine. Summers in Maine: Paintings by N.C. Wyeth is the museum's first exhibition devoted solely to Maine subjects. Many of Wyeth's best known paintings, including The Doryman, loaned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Island Funeral, from the collection of the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington; The Hupper Farm and The Road to the Jones House, from the Dallas Museum of Art; and Sun Glint, from the New Britain Museum of Art, will be installed in the museum's third floor gallery.

N.C. Wyeth's Maine sojourns centered on a sea captain's house in Port Clyde, a small fishing village at the mouth of the Georges River, approximately 90 miles "down east" from Portland. To satisfy an acute longing to own property in his native New England, in 1920 Wyeth purchased a worn house overlooking Port Clyde harbor. While the necessary renovations were undertaken, the family stayed at a boarding house in the village. By 1930, the Wyeths were ensconced, christening the house "Eight Bells" after Winslow Homer's famous painting. A small studio was constructed at the shoreline and shared by various members of the family. For a quarter of a century, Port Clyde and environs, the numerous islands off the coast and the gritty edge-of-life existence of local fishermen provided the artist with stimuli that invigorated his work and fostered his artistic development.

Although many of these paintings were not actually executed in Maine, all are based on first-hand observation and all reflect the depth of Wyethís personal attachment to the people, land and seascape of Maine. Driven by his characteristically intense emotional response, the artist used a variety of styles, painting techniques and media in his endless search for the most meaningful expression of his artistic vision. Maine subjects freed him from the restrictions that constrained his commercial and illustrative work. Rejecting narrative to attain a deeper interpretation of the landscape and sea, he explored through form and color a multiplicity of themes and ideas. He assimilated influences from many sources, ranging from the paintings of Winslow Homer, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent and the American Regionalists to the work of contemporary photographers, folk artists and graphic artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the paintings show evidence of Wyeth's efforts to incorporate into his work certain conventions of modernism.

For almost two decades, Wyeth had painted the hills and pastures along the Brandywine in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, but that body of work never satisfied his consuming desire to paint "a big picture." The Maine paintings, he believed, brought him closer to that goal. For his first one-man exhibition held in New York in December 1939, eleven of the twelve pictures Wyeth selected were of Maine subjects. Clearly, Wyeth and Robert Macbeth, his astute dealer who knew well both critics and collectors, considered the Maine work Wyeth's best personal painting.

In the introduction to the exhibition brochure, Peter Hurd wrote that the work shown at Macbeth Gallery was "the product of revolt against the inevitable limitations of [the] art of illustration." The artist's "spiritual maturation," Hurd asserted, "demanded a freer and more personal expression." Drawing on his strengths as an illustrator, Wyeth infused the Maine paintings with strong dramatic quality and the distinctiveness of a precise moment, yet he also contrived to present his deeply personal interpretation with a universal appeal. Hurd wrote, "Wyeth compels us to stop and ponder with him the surrounding vision of form and colour, of radiance and shadow."

Summers in Maine: Paintings by N.C. Wyeth is supported by The Davenport Family Foundation Fund for Exhibitions.

Exhibiting American art in a restored 19th-century grist mill, the Brandywine River Museum is internationally known for its unparalleled collection of works by three generations of Wyeths and its fine collection of American illustration, still life and landscape painting. Located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the museum is open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except Christmas Day. Admission is $6 for adults; $3 for seniors ages 65 and over, students with I.D., and children ages 6 to 12; and free for children under six and Brandywine Conservancy members. Individual audio tours can be rented for $3. Group rates are available with advance reservations. For more information, please call 610-388-2700.





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