Brandywine River Museum
Exterior of Brandywine River Museum
Chadds Ford, PA
610-388-2700
http://www.brandywinemuseum.org
In 1971, a unique place for American art opened on the banks of the historic Brandywine River in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Nearly 200,000 visitors discovered the Brandywine River Museum that first year.
Today, more than four million visitors later, this 19th-century
grist mill that was converted into a 20th-century art museum has established
an international reputation for the quality of its collections and programs.
Right: Heritage
Gallery, Brandywine River Museum
Three galleries in the old mill building boast original structural beams, white plaster walls, and pine floors. The fourth, the Andrew Wyeth gallery, features flexible wall partitions and a unique skylight system. All galleries open from a circular, brick-floored core - a symbolic silo for the old mill - with dramatic walls of glass, providing spectacular views of the Brandywine River and the rural landscape that inspired many of the artists represented in the museum's carefully focused collections.
The Brandywine River Museum collects and preserves American art
with primary emphasis on the art history of the Brandywine Valley, on American
landscape and still life painting, and on illustration.
Renowned works by N.C., Andrew and James Wyeth and many
other artists from the Brandywine region hang near fascinating American
still life paintings, important landscapes and an unparalleled collection
of American illustration. Instead of trying to replicate encyclopedic collections
of other museums, the Brandywine River Museum focuses its collections and
exhibitions on American art of the 19th and 20th centuries and primarily
art related to the heritage of its region.
Left: Andrew Wyeth Gallery, Brandywine River Museum
The Brandywine River Museum is part of the Brandywine Conservancy, an environmental organization founded in 1967. In the mid-1960s, the historic Brandywine Valley in Chadds Ford, which had inspired artists for over two centuries, faced massive industrial development. The impact in floodplain areas, in particular, would have been devastating to the water supply for numerous communities in southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware, including the city of Wilmington.
Appreciating the need for fast action, a group of local residents bought the endangered land at auction and founded the Brandywine Conservancy in 1967. Soon thereafter, the newly-formed organization purchased Hoffman's Mill, a former grist mill on the banks of the Brandywine. In 1971, the Brandywine River Museum opened in the mill, which had been converted by architect James R. Grieves in harmony with the surrounding landscape and the region's history and art. Today, the museum is regarded as one of the region's most important cultural institutions.
In keeping with the Conservancy's spirit of preservation,
surrounding the museum are stands of wild flowers, trees and shrubs native
and indigenous to the greater Brandywine region. The staff of the Brandywine
Conservancy selects plants that provide a succession of bloom from early
Spring through the first frost, and each plant is located in a setting akin
to its natural habitat: woodland, wetland, floodplain, or meadow. The naturalized
gardens provide pleasure to visitors, serve as a valuable education resource
to horticulturists, and give inspiration to gardeners who wish to use native
plants in their own locations.
Right: Miss Gratz, Brandywine River Museum
The Brandywine River Museum collects and preserves American art with primary emphasis on the art history of the Brandywine Valley, on American landscape and still life painting, and on illustration. Since 1971,when it was founded, the museum's collections have grown to more than 2,500 works of art by hundreds of artists and thousands of other objects in the N.C. Wyeth Studio and residence. A general description and some highlights of the collections follow.
LANDSCAPES
During much of the 19th century, when landscape painting was a dominant form of visual expression, many artists ventured to the Brandywine Valley. By 1819, Bass Otis had published the nation's first lithograph--a Chester County scene entitled House and Trees at Waterside--now in the Brandywine River Museum's collection. Within decades, well-known members of the Hudson River School, including Thomas Doughty, Edward Moran and Jasper Cropsey, had documented the distinctive beauty of the region and are now represented by works in the museum's collection. Some, like William Trost Richards, chose to remain in the area and created powerful works here, such as the museum's Valley of the Brandywine, Chester County (September), painted by Richards about 1886.
Landscape painting has continued in the region throughout the 20th century and is represented in the museum by painters as diverse as George Cope, Clifford Ashley, Peter Hurd and George Weymouth.
STILL LIFE AND GENRE PAINTING
Still life painting also has strong roots in the Brandywine region, particularly trompe l'oeil or "fool the eye" painting that was popular in the late 19th century. The museum's collection includes examples by such painters as William Michael Harnett, the acknowledged leader in this type of painting, John F. Peto, George Cope, John Haberle and Alexander Pope. Many of these works were created for gentleman's clubs, pubs and other "masculine" interiors, hence the decidedly male subject matter: often hunting and fishing equipment, dead game, mugs and pipes. The museum's collection includes works by other important American still life painters, including Raphaelle Peale, John F. Francis, Levi Wells Prentice, J. Alden Weir and Walter Murch, among others.
The field of American genre painting in the 19th and 20th centuries is exemplified with important interior scenes by Horace Pippin and Jefferson David Chalfant, both of whom lived and worked in this valley. Such works as Pippin's Saying Prayers, along with several others frequently exhibited, are prime examples of the vital artistic heritage of the Brandywine region.
AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION
A major portion of the region's heritage is American illustration. The first illustrator of note was the famous F.O.C. Darley, who left New York in 1859 to settle just north of Wilmington, Delaware. A few decades later, Howard Pyle, who is often called "the Father of American Illustration," also began to work in the Brandywine Valley. Pyle established an extraordinarily influential art school in Wilmington and Chadds Ford, where he trained dozens of artists, including major illustrators such as N.C. Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Jessie Willcox Smith and Frank Schoonover. Pyle and many of his students are represented in the Brandywine River Museum.
American illustration is a major component of the museum's collection. Among the hundreds of illustrators represented are early 20th century masters such as Edwin Austin Abbey, Winslow Homer, Howard Chandler Christy, Charles Dana Gibson, Rose O'Neill, Maxfield Parrish, and Rockwell Kent, in addition to late 20th century cartoonists, such as Al Hirschfeld, Charles Addams, Edward Gorey and Charles Schultz; and other illustrators such as Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Charles Santore and Nancy Eckholm Burkert. These are only some of the diverse talents revealed in an illustration collection that also includes Reginald Marsh, George Bellows and Frederic Remington.
THREE GENERATIONS OF WYETH ART
The Brandywine Valley profoundly affected N.C. Wyeth when he arrived here to study with Howard Pyle in 1902. He married, settled in Chadds Ford, raised a family, and within a decade established himself among America's foremost illustrators with work featured in magazines and newspapers and in numerous very popular books. Several of his best-known illustrations, including works from Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Black Arrow, The Boy's King Arthur, The Last of the Mohicans and other Scribners' classics, are frequently on view at the museum. Wyeth is also represented by fine still life and landscape paintings and portraits.
N.C. Wyeth's five children inherited much talent. Daughters Henriette Wyeth Hurd and Carolyn Wyeth gained recognition as painters and are well represented in the museum's collection. Andrew Wyeth, the youngest son of N.C., has become one of the most influential and well-known painters in the history of American art. Andrew Wyeth's images in egg tempera and watercolor are often thought to be exact representations of scenes or people, but, in fact, Wyeth restructures elements of visible reality, arranging people and objects as he pleases in order to create his private visions of places and people in Pennsylvania and Maine. Many works by Andrew Wyeth are exhibited at the museum; often on view are such well-known paintings as Evening atKuerner's, Night Sleeper, Roasted Chestnuts, Siri, Trodden Weed and Snow Hill.
The third generation of the Wyeth family includes Andrew Wyeth's younger son, painter Jamie Wyeth. By his early 20s, Jamie Wyeth had earned national attention with a posthumous portrait of John F. Kennedy and other work. Later he produced striking portraits of Rudolf Nureyev and Andy Warhol, studies for which are in the museum's collection. Since then, Wyeth has established a distinctive style, characterized by strong images and sharp contrasts in his landscapes and portraits. He is known for his monumental animal portraits, including Portrait of Pig and Raven in the museum's collection, which represents various stages in his changing style.
Selections from the museum's permanent collection are always exhibited.
The Brandywine River Museum is located on US Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. See the museum's website for hours and admission fees.
Google announced in 2004 a collaboration with institutional libraries to digitize large quantities of books: the Google Books Library Project. Public domain books are available on an open access basis. Copyrighted material is treated in one of three ways. Google negotiates with cooperating publishers through its Google Books Partner Program for "Limited Preview" of entire pages or sections within books by readers. For scanned books without copyright permissions, "snippets" are available. For remaining books basic information is provided without ability to search within the book. The snippets inform readers about the relevance of the book to their subject of inquiry.
Google explains its service saying:
Note: A Google Book Search conducted April 30, 2008 located the following books published by the Museum. None featured Limited Preview. The catalogues are listed in reverse date order.
Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History. Individual pages in this catalogue will be amended as TFAO adds content, corrects errors and reorganizes sections for improved readability. Refreshing or reloading pages enables readers to view the latest updates.
Why was this sub-index page prepared?
When Resource Library publishes over time more than one article concerning an institution, there is created as an additional resource for readers a sub-index page containing links to each Resource Library article or essay concerning that institution, plus available information on its location and other descriptive information.
TFAO's catalogues provide many more useful resources:
Copyright 2008 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved.