!["It was my father who hooked me on [John] Keats,” said Carolyn Wyeth. "Keats' tie with nature…his great simplicity. I understand his words. I've got everything on Keats that ever was.” "Mask of Keats,” circa 1940, features a death mask of the British poet that she painted two or three times. Brandywine River Museum.](Archives/2009/01-January/images//2009-01-13__11-32-11Image1.GIF)
"It was my father who hooked me on [John] Keats,” said Carolyn Wyeth. "Keats' tie with nature…his great simplicity. I understand his words. I've got everything on Keats that ever was.” "Mask of Keats,” circa 1940, features a death mask of the British poet that she painted two or three times. Brandywine River Museum.
:Considered by many "The First Family of American Painting," the three generations of the Wyeth clan comprise many facets and multiple skills. The "Big Three" are the best known and most talented: the patriarch, N.C. Wyeth (1882–1945), was the greatest illustrator of the Golden Age of American Illustration. His son Andrew (b 1917) is arguably the most famous and popular American artist of the Twentieth Century. Andrew's son James "Jamie" (b 1946) is a versatile and highly successful artist who paints more like his grandfather than his father.
N.C.'s other children were also offspring of achievement. Nathaniel, the only sibling who was not an artist, had a distinguished career as an engineer and inventor. Henriette married artist Peter Hurd and specialized in paintings of the Southwest, as well as executing a poignant portrait of former first lady Patricia Nixon that hangs in the White House. Ann, who married N.C.'s student and talented painter John McCoy, was a composer and accomplished watercolorist.
The least recognized artist in the Wyeth family was the rebellious one among the lively siblings, Carolyn, who was known for her feisty, hard-edged personality. Her rebellious eccentricities obscured a sensitive soul that helped her create a strong oeuvre over the course of a tumultuous life. Her paintings, vivid in color, solid in structure and straightforward, drew on intensely personal perceptions and perspectives.
Carolyn often said that she did "everything in a big way. Smoke like a damn chimney…When I got drunk…—I got drunk as hell.” This 1979 photograph is by Rusty Kennedy. Brandywine River Museum.
Carolyn Wyeth's work is the subject of a welcome exhibition, the first in three decades, at the Brandywine River Museum. On view January 24–March 15, "Unique Force: The Art of Carolyn Wyeth" comprises some 40 paintings and drawings that span her career, plus numerous portraits of her.
Carolyn (1909–2004) grew up among rambunctious, precocious siblings who took their cues from their burly, exuberant and loving father. "He did everything in a big way," she recalled. "If he bought paint, he bought too much paint — which I do." Surrounded by other would-be artists, Carolyn was expected to make her life in art. Impressing her father with her lively drawings, at age 12 he began giving her serious training in his studio.
But as a youngster, Carolyn resisted her father's orderly, academic approach, determined to do things her way. She was a consistent nonconformer and outspoken critic. Her father called her "an enthusiast, anarchist, pugilist — and angel, all in one," adding with admiration that she "pounds through her days like a war horse."
Carolyn developed a keen interest in animals and nature, including ponies, dogs, rabbits and chickens, preferring them to people. She cultivated her own garden and loved roaming the woods and streams around the Chadds Ford house.
