Andrew Wyeth: Home Places

The artworks in this exhibition are drawn exclusively from the nearly 7,000-object Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, now managed by the Brandywine. Many of these pieces have never before been exhibited, offering a first glimpse at a significant treasure trove that will shed new light on the collaborative creative process of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth.

Andrew Wyeth: Home Places shares the story of a remarkable immersive and intensive artistic practice that ranged across the full array of media Andrew Wyeth practiced. Over the course of a long and diverse career of many chapters, Wyeth repeatedly depicted a small group of historic houses in the vicinity of his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. In these weathered buildings others might have overlooked or even scorned in the face of gentrification and commercial development of the region, Wyeth found layers of emotion and association. These structures served as a means of pursuing his abiding attention to that which lies beneath the surface of things. Through living in this landscape his whole life, he engaged in an artistic practice of uncommon focus over an extended timescale, coming to know deeply the evocative buildings in a radius of just a few square miles and rendering them in an astonishing variety of compositions, handlings and approaches.

Two of the previously unexhibited works on view are the charming early oil The Miller’s Son, painted when Wyeth was just 17 years old, and the stunning watercolor Noah’s Ark Study made at age 87 - both depicting the same property, Brinton’s Mill. The Wyeths came to own and restore this property for use as their primary residence is among the many contributions of Betsy James Wyeth.   

Winter Hours (January 9 - March 31): 10 A.M. - 4 P.M.

Regular Hours (April 1 - November 22): 9:30 A.M. - 4:30 P.M.

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