Christmas in July

Christmas in July

One weekend only!

See Nicholas Wyeth’s historic tinplate train layout in the Museum atrium. This is the first time in 40 years that this 8x12’ layout will be on view at the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

Commissioned in 1976 as a Christmas gift for Nicholas Wyeth (b. 1943), older son of Andrew Wyeth, the 8x12' standard gauge layout was designed and built for the living room of his Manhattan apartment. The layout was later moved to Cushing, Maine, occasionally being lent to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine, and the Brandywine River Museum of Art during the Christmas season.

In 2014, Nicholas Wyeth, who has a lifelong interest in modeling and continues to build and fly model airplanes, donated the train layout to the Brandywine River Museum of Art, where is has been recently enhanced with modern reproductions of a monorail and vintage racers. Standard gauge trains were introduced in 1906 by the Lionel Corporation, and the Wyeth train was made by Lionel in the 1920's.