Discover Betsy James Wyeth’s role as the curator and archivist of the Wyeth family’s rich history and collections in "Treasures from the Family: The Gift of Betsy James Wyeth." The exhibition consists of art and archival material from the major bequest she left to the Brandywine Museum of Art upon her death in 2020.
Andrew and Betsy Wyeth were long-time supporters of the Museum. From its earliest days, the Wyeths stepped in to ensure there would always be works of art in the galleries. Their role in transferring the N.C. Wyeth House and Studio, and later, the Andrew Wyeth Studio to the Museum’s care helped to transform the institution’s mission. The couple’s vision for the future led to the creation of the Museum’s Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Study Center, which also stewards the collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art. In a final act of philanthropy, Betsy Wyeth planned a major gift of artworks—beyond those by Andrew Wyeth—and the family’s rich trove of archival material to the Museum.
Treasures highlights paintings held by the Wyeth family, many of which were on loan to Brandywine for decades. Such paintings as N.C. Wyeth’s Self-Portrait with Palette (ca. 1909-1912) or his Captain Nemo (1918) have frequently hung in the galleries but will now make Brandywine their permanent home thanks to Betsy Wyeth’s planning. In addition to these familiar paintings, other works in the bequest showcase moments in N.C. Wyeth’s career development such as a teenage self-portrait and his experiments with impressionist brushwork. Among the gems in the exhibition are examples of his early Western work that catapulted him to the top of the illustration field.
While the bequest primarily contains the work of N.C. Wyeth, other members of the family, including Henriette, Carolyn, and Jamie Wyeth are represented as well. In their lifetimes, Andrew and Betsy enjoyed the work of Howard Pyle, often making gifts of his paintings to one another, and that passion is represented by several Pyle paintings in the exhibition.
In addition to guaranteeing the future care of the family’s art collection, Betsy Wyeth ensured that her decades-long project of collecting and organizing the letters of N.C. Wyeth would be continued by the Brandywine’s Walter and Leonore Annenberg Research Center. Known officially as the “N.C. Wyeth Correspondence Collection of Betsy James Wyeth,” the collection consists of thousands of letters, photographs, and other unique items that range from N.C.’s birth in 1882 through the condolence messages after his death in 1945. Betsy collected these letters from disparate sources, catalogued them, and published a selection in her book The Wyeths: The Letters of N.C. Wyeth, 1901-1945.
An assortment of these highly personal family documents and keepsakes is included in the exhibition, connecting the private lives of the Wyeths to the paintings, many of which are well known to Brandywine visitors. Among these treasures is a valentine given by N.C. Wyeth to Carolyn Bockius in 1904, before their marriage. A trove of family photographs, most taken by N.C. Wyeth himself, provides a glimpse of the talented Wyeth children as they grow up. His untimely death in 1945 shocked the family, who rushed to preserve many special mementos which are also part of this collection. N.C. Wyeth’s last known correspondence with his son Andrew, written weeks before his death in 1945, will be included.
Treasures not only represents Betsy Wyeth’s research on her family history, but also her understanding that both the paintings and the archives work in tandem to create a fuller, more contextual story of the Wyeths, not only as a remarkable group of artists, but as a family. Through her generosity, Betsy Wyeth has entrusted Brandywine with the care of art works and her collected family history, which will now be publicly accessible for both enjoyment and scholarship in perpetuity.