(Rockland, ME) On Saturday, May 21, the
Farnsworth Art Museum will open an exhibition of paintings by N.C. Wyeth
entitled N.C. Wyeth: Painter. This exhibition will be on display at the
museum’s Wyeth Center, on the corner of Union and Grace Streets in Rockland
through December 31, 2016.
Newell
Convers Wyeth (1882-1945) is best known as one of America’s foremost book and
magazine illustrators of his era. Born and raised in Needham, Massachusetts,
N.C. Wyeth learned drafting at the Mechanics School and then studied at the
Massachusetts Normal School (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design). He
was advised by one of his teachers to become an illustrator, and he soon
followed two of his student friends to study illustration in 1902 under the
renowned American illustrator Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware. In February
1903, Wyeth got his first commission, from Saturday
Evening Post. This was the beginning
of a long and successful career in which he illustrated more than a hundred
books, among them many popular novels for Scribner’s, including Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Robin Hood, The Last of the Mohicans, Robinson Crusoe, and
Rip Van Winkle.
His
fame and success as an illustrator notwithstanding, Wyeth also wanted to be known
as a painter, an artist whose skills went beyond the requirements of adhering
to the narratives for which his illustrations were commissioned. Over the
course of his career, in fact, he did more than 200 landscapes, 30 still lifes,
and 60 portraits and other private subjects. This exhibition focuses on some of
his more ambitious independent landscape and seascape paintings, ranging in
date from 1917 to 1941. These works were done in and around his two homes, his
primary residence in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and a summer home in Port
Clyde, Maine.
N.C. Wyeth, Portrait of a Young Artist, 1936, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 1/4 inches, museum purchase, 1963.1285
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945) The Harbor Herring gut, 1925
Oil on canvas
43 x 48 1/8 inches
Private Collection
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945) My Grandfather’s House, c. 1929 Oil on canvas
42 1/8 x 48 inches
Private Collection
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945)
48 1⁄4 x 52 3/16 inches
Private Collection
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945)
Fisherman’s Family, c. 1933/1934
Oil on canvas 591⁄4 x 71 inches
Private Collection
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945) Herring!, c. 1935
Oil on canvas
48 1/8 x 52 1/8 inches
Private Collection
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945) Ridge Church, 1936
Oil on canvas
36 x 40 1/8 inches
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882-1945)
Bright and Fair - Eight Bells, 1936 Oil on canvas
42 3/8 x 52 1/4 inches
Museum Purchase, 1989.13
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882-1945)
Maine Headland, Black Head, Monhegan Island, c. 1936-1938
Oil on canvas
48 1/4 x 52 1/4 inches
Bequest of Mrs. Elizabeth B. Noyce, 1997.3.59
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882-1945)
The Morris House, Port Clyde, c. 1937 Oil on canvas
34 x 52 x 7/8 inches
Bequest of Mrs. Elizabeth B. Noyce, 1997.3.60
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945)
Black Spruce Ledge (Time and Tide), 1941 Oil and egg tempera on hardboard
45 x 52 inches
Private Collection
