N.c. Wyeth
He was the star pupil of artist Howard Pyle and became one of America's greatest illustrators.
During his lifetime, Wyeth created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books, 25 of them for Scribner's, which is the work for which he is best-known.
Wyeth was a realist painter just as the camera and photography began to compete with his craft. Sometimes seen as melodramatic, his illustrations were designed to be understood quickly. Wyeth, who was both a painter and an illustrator, understood the difference, and said in 1908, "Painting and illustration cannot be mixed—one cannot merge from one into the other."
Life
Wyeth in his studio,
c. His ancestor, Nicholas Wyeth, a stonemason, came to Massachusetts from England in 1645.
Later ancestors were prominent participants in the French and Indian Wars, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the American Civil War, passing down rich oral histories and tradition to N.C. Wyeth and his family and providing subject matter for his art, which was deeply felt.
His maternal ancestors came from Switzerland, and as a child, his mother was acquainted with literary giants Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His literary appreciation and artistic talents appear to have come from her.
He was the oldest of four brothers who spent much time hunting, fishing, and enjoying other outdoor pursuits, and doing chores on their farm.
His varied youthful activities and his naturally astute sense of observation later aided the authenticity of his illustrations and obviated the need for models: "When I paint a figure on horseback, a man plowing, or a woman buffeted by the wind, I have an acute sense of the muscle strain."
His mother encouraged his early inclination toward art. Wyeth was doing excellent watercolor paintings by the age of twelve. He went to Mechanics Arts School to learn drafting, and then the Massachusetts Normal Arts School and the Eric Pape School of Art to learn illustration, under George L.
Reed.
When two of his friends were accepted to Howard Pyle's School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware and Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, Wyeth was invited to try to join them in 1902. Howard Pyle was the "father" of American illustration, and Wyeth immediately meshed with his methods and ideals.
Pyle’s approach included excursions to historical sites and impromptu dramas using props and costumes, meant to stimulate imagination, emotion, atmosphere, and the observation of humans in action—all necessities for his style of illustration. But where Pyle painted in exquisite detail, Wyeth veered toward looser, quicker strokes and relied on ominous shadows and moody backgrounds.
He probably picked up his glazing technique from Pyle.
Wyeth’s exuberant personality and talent made him a standout student. A robust, powerfully built young man with strangely delicate hands, he ate a lot less than his size implied.
He was admiring of great literature, music, and drama, and he enjoyed spirited conversation.
A bucking bronco for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on February 21, 1903 was Wyeth's first commission as an illustrator. That year he described his work as "true, solid American subjects–nothing foreign about them."
It was a spectacular accomplishment for the 21-year-old Wyeth, after just a few months under Pyle’s tutelage. In 1904, the same magazine commissioned him to illustrate a Western story, and Pyle urged Wyeth to go West to acquire direct knowledge, much as Zane Grey had done for his Western novels.
Henriette and Ann married two of N.C.'s protégés, Peter Hurd and John W. Wyeth is the grandfather of artist Jamie Wyeth and musician Howard Wyeth.
Title page, King Arthur.
By 1911, N.C.
He painted a series for an edition of Treasure Island (1911), by Robert Louis Stevenson, thought by many to be his finest group of illustrations. The proceeds from this great success paid for his house and studio. He also illustrated editions of Kidnapped (1913), Robin Hood (1917), The Last of the Mohicans (1919), Robinson Crusoe (1920), Rip Van Winkle (1921), The White Company (1922), and The Yearling (1939).
He did work for prominent periodicals, including Century, Harper's Monthly, Ladies' Home Journal, McClure's, Outing, The Popular Magazine, and Scribner's. His early works were sold outright at a handsome price, but only much later did he receive royalties.
Instead of expressing that inner feeling, you express the outward thought… or imitation of that feeling."
Wyeth also did posters, calendars, and advertisements for clients such as Lucky Strike, Cream of Wheat, and Coca-Cola, as well as paintings of Beethoven, Wagner, and Liszt for Steinway & Sons. During both World Wars, he contributed patriotic images to government and private agencies.
His nonillustrative portrait and landscape paintings changed dramatically in style throughout his life as he experimented first with impressionism in the 1910s (feeling an affinity with the nearby "New Hope Group"), then by the 1930s veering to the realistic American regionalism of Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, painting with thin oils and occasionally, egg tempera.
Wyeth worked rapidly and experimented constantly, often working on a larger scale than necessary, befitting his energetic and grand vision, which often harked back to his ancestral past. He could conceive, sketch out, and paint a large painting in as little as three hours.
By the 1930s, he restored an old captain’s house in Port Clyde, Maine, named "Eight Bells" after a Winslow Homer painting, and took his family there for summers, where he painted primarily seascapes.
Museums started to purchase his paintings, and by 1941, he was elected to the National Academy and exhibited on a regular basis.
In 1945, N.C. Wyeth's son) died in an accident at a railway crossing near his Chadds Ford home.
The Hostage by N.C.
Wyeth, 1911, for Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
At the time of his death, Wyeth was working on an ambitious series of murals for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company depicting the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a series completed by Andrew Wyeth and John McCoy.
In June 1945, he received the honorary degree of master of arts from Bowdoin College. Wyeth Biography
Bronco Buster, Cream of Wheat advertisement 1906 or 1907, courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Lesson Plan for grades 9-12: N.C.