On view this winter in Brandywine’s Strawbridge Family Gallery, this exhibition is a celebration of what connects us during the holiday season—opportunities to gather under one roof and the sharing of warm messages from afar.
Home for the Holidays: Cards and Hearths from the Collection will feature a selection of Brandywine’s dollhouses, including two rooms from a nine-foot dollhouse designed by Ann Wyeth McCoy and built by her husband, artist John McCoy. The rooms of this dollhouse are filled with handmade furnishings and miniature paintings contributed by Wyeth McCoy’s famously artistic siblings and in-laws—a communal, family endeavor that paid tribute to the Wyeth’s close-knit holiday gatherings. These two rooms will be accompanied by the Brandywine’s first presentation of the Peters-Herdeg dollhouse, a detailed replica of an 18th century Georgian-style manor that recently entered the Museum’s collection.
Home for the Holidays will also feature original designs for holiday cards from the collections of the Brandywine Museum of Art and the Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Study Center. Several members of the Wyeth family illustrated holiday cards, both for commercial sale and for personal exchange between their friends and family. This exhibition will show examples of these designs by the Wyeths as well as holiday-inspired greetings from other prominent regional artists and illustrators.