Three Generations of the Wyeth Family at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Jun 4, 2010
Frances Spiegel

N. C. Wyeth A Young Maine Fisherman 1933 - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection

Dulwich Picture Gallery is showing more than 60 works by the Wyeth family. The exhibition has been loaned by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection.

From 9th June to 22nd August 2010 Dulwich Picture Gallery will present The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art. The exhibition will feature more than sixty paintings and drawings by members of the Wyeth Family including N. C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth, his son Andrew and his daughter Henriette, and his grandson Jamie. Also included are works by Henriette's husband, Peter Hurd.

The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art is on loan from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This is the first time that a complete exhibition has been loaned to a European gallery. The loan is part of the Bank's Art in our Communities® programme which aims to facilitate cultural understanding worldwide, in the hope of creating better economic opportunities. The Wyeth Family has already enjoyed a showing at Wichita Art Museum, Kansas from September 2009 to January 2010.

Art in our Communities®

The Bank of America Collection is one of the world's oldest most important corporate art collections. Works of art, by artists ranging from Henri Matisse to Andy Warhol, are on view in corporate premises, the Bank's own public galleries, and as part of the Art in our Communities® programme in art galleries and museums across the world.

The project has transformed the Bank's art holdings into a vast public resource. It sponsors travelling exhibitions throughout Europe and America by loaning complete exhibitions to galleries and museums, without charge. By the end of 2011 the Bank will have loaned more than 40 exhibitions to museums and art galleries wordwide.

The Wyeth Family – Highlights of the Exhibition

Newell Convers Wyeth

Newell Convers Wyeth, known as N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), is regarded by many as one of America's best illustrators. He was certainly one of the most prolific, producing more than 3,000 paintings and illustrating over 100 books, including “Treasure Island” and “Robinson Crusoe”. Three Wyeth children, plus two sons-in-law, including Peter Hurd, were taught to paint by Newell.

The exhibition includes some of N. C. Wyeth's finest pieces such as On Christmas Night by Bethlehem Town (1924) which is based on Robert P. Tristram Coffin's poem with the same name. Also on display is A Young Maine Fisherman (1933), Eight Bells (1937) and Untitled (Marines landing on the Beach) (1944).

Andrew Newell Wyeth

N. C. Wyeth's second child, Andrew (1917-2009), recipient of the National Medal of Arts in 2007, is often referred to as the “Painter of the People”. His favourite subjects were the people and land around him. At his death in 2009 he was one of the most highly regarded American artists of the 20th century. The exhibition includes his watercolour Crossed Swords (1992).

James Browning Wyeth

James (known as Jamie) Browning Wyeth (1946-) is Andrew Wyeth’s son. Although Jamie's work reflects his own distinctive style and personality it also shows strong links to that of his father and grandfather. The exhibition features Number 86 (1980), Warm Halloween (1989) and September 11, 2001 (2008).

Henriette Wyeth Hurd

The Wyeth Family: Three Generations also features work by Henriette Wyeth Hurd (1907-1997), the eldest child of N. C. Wyeth. Henriette is best known as a portrait and still life painter whose sitters have included First Lady Pat Nixon, author Paul Horgan, and the actress Helen Hayes.

Peter Hurd

In 1929 Henriette married the artist Peter Hurd (1904-1984) whose work also features in the exhibition. Hurd, one-time student of, and assistant to N.C. Wyeth, is renowned for his luminous egg temperas, watercolours and lithographs showing the New Mexican landscape, where he lived with Henriette.

The Wyeth Family – A Travelling Exhibition

The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art will be open at Dulwich from 9th June 2010 – 22nd August 2010. In 2011 the exhibition will be loaned to the Mona Bismarck Foundation in Paris where it will be on view from 6th October – 17th December 2011. Further information is available from Dulwich Picture Gallery.