An Artist-Illustrator

Vandemark's Folly

An Artist-Illustrator

by Joan K Yanni

A newly-acquired painting was installed in the auditorium corridor last month. It shows two tall men, one sitting, looking morose, while the other stands over him as though offering comfort. The label reads, “Illustration for Vandemark’s Folly, 1921 (2011.6).” The artist is Newell Conners (N.C.) Wyeth.

N.C. Wyeth was born in Needham, Massachusetts.  His family always had an interest in the classics; his mother was acquainted with literary giants Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His literary appreciation and artistic talents appear to have been influenced by her.

He was the oldest of four brothers who spent much time enjoying outdoor pursuits such as hunting and fishing. His mother encouraged his early inclination toward art, and by the time he was twelve he was doing excellent watercolor paintings. He went to Mechanics Arts School to learn drafting, then to the Massachusetts Normal Arts School and the Eric Pape School of Art to learn illustration.

When two of his friends were accepted at Howard Pyle’s School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware, and Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, Wyeth was invited to try to join them. Howard Pyle was the “father” of American illustration, and Wyeth immediately meshed with his methods and outlook.
Pyle’s approach included excursions to historical sites meant to stimulate imagination, emotion, and the observation of humans in action. But where Pyle painted with exquisite detail, Wyeth veered toward looser, quicker strokes, sometimes with moody backgrounds.

Wyeth’s exuberant personality and talent made him a standout student.  In 1903, when he was only 21, he was commissioned to illustrate a bucking bronco for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. This was a spectacular accomplishment after just a few months under Pyle’s teaching. In 1904, the same magazine commissioned him to illustrate a Western story, and Pyle encouraged him to go West to acquire direct knowledge of the scenery.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Upon returning to Chadds Ford, he painted a series of farm scenes for Scribner’s, finding the landscape less dramatic than that of the West but still a rich environment for his art.
His painting Mowing (1907), not done for illustration, was among the most successful images of rural life, rivaling Winslow Homer’s great scenes of Americana.

He married Carolyn Bockius of Wilmington in 1908 and settled in Chadds Ford to raise a family. He had hoped to make enough money with his illustrations to be able to paint what he wanted, but he found that while his family and income grew, he found it difficult to break from the illustrations that supported them.

He and Carolyn had five children, and he created a stimulating household for their talents. Wyeth was very sociable, and his frequent visitors included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hugh Walpole, Lillian Gish and John Gilbert. According to his son Andrew, N.C. was a strict but patient father whose hard work as an illustrator gave his family the financial freedom to follow their own artistic and scientific pursuits. Andrew went on to become one of the foremost American artists of the second half of the 20th century, and both Henriette and Carolyn became artists also. Ann became an artist and composer. Nathaniel became an engineer for DuPont and worked on the team that invented the plastic soda bottle. Henriette and Ann married two of N.C.’s protégés, Peter Hurd and John W. McCoy.

By 1911 N.C. was turning to illustrating classical literature. He painted a series for an edition of Treasure Island (1911) by Robert Louis Stevenson, said to be some of his finest work. The proceeds from this work paid for his house and studio. He also illustrated editions of Kidnapped, The Last of the Mohicans, Robinson Crusoe and Rip Van Winkle. Wyeth would read a book thoroughly before doing the illustrations and he often created scenes that were scarcely described in the book, adding details and mood of his own.

By 1914 Wyeth loathed the commercialism upon which he had become dependent. He was restricted by the fact that illustration must adapt itself to the engraver’s and printer’s limitations. This fact alone kills any underlying inspiration.

His non-illustrative portrait and landscape paintings changed dramatically throughout his life as he experimented first with Impressionism in the 1910s, then veered to the realistic Regionalism of Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. He worked rapidly and experimented constantly. He could conceive, sketch out, and paint a large painting in as little as three hours.

In the 130s he restored an old captain‘s house in Port Clyde, Maine, 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 he and his grandson (Nathaniel C. Wyeth’s son) died in an accident at a railroad crossing near his Chadds Ford home. At the time of his death he 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.