The Philadelphia Sketch Club
Where Artists Grow
150TH ANNIVERSARY COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS
N. C. Wyeth and the Philadelphia Sketch Club
March 22 through May 23, 2010
N. C. Wyeth began to experiment with landscape painting techniques about 1907. Well aware of the professional difference between illustrators and artists, Wyeth saw in landscape painting a pathway to success in fine art, a field in which he aspired to “achieve real distinction.” For the next four years, Wyeth painted scenes in the Chadds Ford countryside, striving to acquire the “plain, solid, intimate knowledge” he needed to express a creative strain illustrative work largely denied him. Working in oil, he produced countless studies, many of which he later painted over or destroyed.
Wyeth’s membership in the Philadelphia Sketch Club allowed him the first public showing of his best landscape work. He selected 22 landscapes and 10 illustrations for an exhibition held in November 1912. It was the largest exhibition to date devoted solely to his work and the first to include non-illustrative pictures. The exhibition attracted much attention in the Philadelphia and Wilmington press, with reviews ranging from favorable to decidedly negative.
Although the landscape paintings were executed in Impressionistic styles Wyeth abandoned by the mid-teens, the period culminating in the exhibition was his first concerted attempt to move away from the constraints of illustration. N. C. Wyeth and the Philadelphia Sketch Club brings together many of the paintings Wyeth selected for his début exhibition and presents a fascinating glimpse into an early aspect of his artistic development.
Brandywine River Museum Members’ Preview Party – Friday, March 19th, 5:30 – 7:30
Brandywine River Museum
U. S. Route 1
Chadds Ford, PA 19317
www.brandywinemuseum.org
N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945)
The Village, ca. 1910 / 1911
Oil on canvas, 25 x 31 in. (63.4 x 78.7 cm)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Winther
Photo courtesy of the Brandywine River Museum
N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945)
At the same moment the door behind Radcliffe crashed open and a dozen men crowded in, rifles in hand, 1912
Oil on canvas, 47 x 37 7/8 in. (119.3 x 96.2 cm)
Collection of The Guest Family
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