AFA Autumn 2019

Autumn 84 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Fig. 8: N. C. Wyeth (1882–1945), September Afternoon, 1916. Oil on canvas, 42 x 48 inches. Collection of Frank and Susan Jackson. Fig. 9: N. C. Wyeth (1882–1945), The Harbor at Herring Gut, 1925. Oil on canvas, 43 x 48⅛ inches. The Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection. his artistic legacy for generations. Charles Scribner’s Sons hired him to illustrate a new edition of Treasure Island. He created images that profoundly enriched Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, bringing to life unforgettable characters (Fig. 5), while exploring the universal melancholy of leaving home and the very human fear of the unknown. The illustrations were a popular success, securing Wyeth a new level of public recognition that led to similar commissions throughout the 1910s and 1920s. With his earnings from Treasure Island, Wyeth purchased eighteen acres of land on a rocky slope just south of Chadds Ford village, where he built a house and studio (Fig. 6). The studio, erected on the hill above the house, offered a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside through its dramatic Palladian-style window. From here, the artist would cultivate a profound sense of place that would nourish his art and inspire the art of his children and grandson. Despite the commissions that poured in, Wyeth continued to struggle to develop a personal artistic vision and at the same time support his family. The paintings from the period show the diversity this balancing act demanded of him—he produced a heady mi x of paintings on subjects as far ranging as Arthurian knights to Wild Bill Hickok (Fig. 7), from a New England skipper to an aged Rip Van Winkle, as well as Chadds Ford landscapes of breathtaking beauty (Fig. 8). In 1920, the artist purchased an old seaman’s house on a rocky shore in the small mid-coastal Maine fishing village of Port Clyde (Fig. 9), thus giving himself a foothold in New England for which he had long yearned. Wyeth drew fresh inspiration from this new setting, and his life and art would be profoundly enriched by his association with the coast. In 1925, Wyeth’s mother, Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, died. She had been the parent who