N. C. Wyeth

Newell Convers Wyeth was the first in three famous generations of artists that hail from the Brandywine River Valley¹ in Pennsylvania. He was followed by his son, Andy, and grandson, Jamie - not to mention daughters Carolyn², Ann, and Henriette³.

However, for those familiar with N. C. know that his most famous paintings were used to illustrate books. Many were published by Scribner's including include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Westward Ho!, The Mysterious Island, The Deerslayer, The Yearling, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Black Arrow.

N. C. was born in 1882⁴ in Needham, Massachusetts, about ten miles southwest of Boston. He became interested in art as a kid but his dad thought that was not a very practical calling. Instead, he suggested N. C. study drafting and N. C. did enroll at the Mechanical Arts School in Boston. But his mom took his side and N. C. later transferred to the Massachusetts Normal Art School.

It was evident that the kid had talent and at the time there was a market for skilled artists to provide illustrations for books and magazines. His teachers suggest he study with Howard Pyle, who at the time was a very successful illustrator and was pulling in over $50,000 a year. By one estimate, that's equivalent to a cool $12,000,000.

Of course, studying with Howard necessitated a move to Wilmington, Delaware. So in 1902, N. C. headed off.

Howard was impressed with N. C.'s painting, and N. C. was impressed with Howard's teaching. N. C. quickly absorbed the instruction, and it only took five months before he was selling a cover to the Saturday Evening Post.

This was a day when cameras were increasingly common for the average Joe and Josephine Blow, but were not yet a convenient tool for the artist. Generally if you wanted to draw or paint a particular subject you had to actually go where the subject was. So for the next few years N. C. would make trips west specifically to observe the people, animals, and land. Within five years, N. C. was being hailed as the greatest painter of outdoor life.

But it was as an illustrator that N. C. achieved his greatest fame. Not only did N. C. have the ability, but he began working when the technology of image reproduction had made major strides.

The earliest method of producing illustrations for books was the woodcut. The painting or drawing was copied by an engraver⁵ onto a block of wood. This block would then be inked and printed for inclusion in the book.

However, in the 19th century the improvement in cameras and other optical devices led to the invention of photoengraving. A plate of metal was coated with a light-sensitive film, sometimes a special type of asphalt (bitumen) and sometimes specially treated eggwhite. A projection of a photographic negative onto the plate would produce a chemical reaction that would harden the areas of the film exposed to the light. The part of the film not exposed would not harden and could be washed away. So the black areas of the negative correspond to areas of bare metal.

The plate is then etched with acid which only affected the exposed metal. The remaining film is then removed and you have a metal copy of the photograph where the black areas of the negative are recessed. When ink is rolled onto the plate, those areas remain bare.

So once the plate is printed you get the opposite of the negative - black areas are white and white areas are black. But since this is what the original photograph looked like, you have a reproduction of the original picture. Half-tone techniques are used to render shades of grey. So photoengraving produces near verbatim reproductions of the photographs.

By the beginning of the 20th century color engraving had become possible. Instead of making only one black and white print, multiple plates were prepared where the image was projected through color filters. Early only three colors were used but later this was switched to four. Printing a single image from the individual plates inked with the complementary colors of the filter reproduces the original image in the original colors.

The main problem with producing color reproductions was that color photographs were not really available until the 1930's and even then they were not useful for photoengraving. Paintings with their simplified color schemes were more suitable for reproduction and color photographs for ads, books, and magazines began appearing regularly only in the 1960's and artwork was still competing with photographs into the 1980's. So with the boom in the printing industry in the early 20th century, there was a real need for artists of N. C.'s caliber.

By 1906 N. C. had become a successful and in-demand illustrator and decided he could set up a household. He married Carolyn Bockius and they moved about ten miles north of Wilmington to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in the Brandywine River Valley. Ultimately they had five kids. There was Andrew, of course, but also the three girls. The only sibling to break the artistic mold was Nathaniel who became an engineer and is credited with inventing the polymer that ended up as the plastic soft drink bottle.

N. C. also painted what some call "serious art". That is, paintings of what he wanted to paint. The story (evidently true) is that N. C. felt that being an illustrator didn't bring quite the same status as being an artist.

Although such an opinion is common enough (some people still debate if Norman Rockwell was an artist or illustrator), the truth is that much - quote - "great art" - unquote - was for all practical purposes illustration-for-hire. If you read the contracts of some Renaissance artists they more or less dictate what the artist should paint. For instance, one contract in part reads:

In the rectangular panel, the Ascension of our Lord, Jesus Christ, with the figure of the glorious Virgin Mary, the Twelve Apostles and some angels and other ornaments, as may seem suitable to the painter. In the semicircle above, supported by two angels, should be painted the figure of God the Almighty Father. The predella [the raised step at the base of an altar] below is to be painted and adorned with stories according to the desire of the present Abbot. The columns, however, and the moldings and all other ornamentation of the panel should be embellished with fine gold and other fine colors, as will be most fitting, so that the panel will be beautifully and diligently painted, embellished and gilded from top to bottom as stated above and as it befits a good, experienced, honorable, and accomplished master.

Even when illustrating a book we figure N. C. probably had more say in what he painted.

Today no one knows what caused the accident on October 19, 1945, when the car driven by N. C. was struck by a train in Chadds Ford. Both N. C. and his namesake grandson were killed. The car may have stalled; perhaps the sunlight obscured his vision. Some have hinted at more sinister ongoings but almost certainly it was simply an accident.

Usually the location of the accident is a bit vague only saying it was about a mile from the Wyeth home. But it happened along Ring Road not far south from the intersection with Baltimore Pike (US Route 1).

The railroad track is gone, and modern maps and those from the 1940's don't quite jibe. The roads have either shifted due to modern construction or draftsmen eighty years ago simplified the lines of the roads. In the 1940's Ring Road was shown to be essentially straight before it reached the track which was about three tenths of a mile after the turn from US 1. Today, though, the beginning of Ring Road angles a little west and then it bends back a bit east before it reaches where the crossing was. The point where the track crossed the road also appears to be a bit further north than indicated on the older maps.

References

N. C. Wyeth: A Biography, Harper, 2003.

"Brandywine Creek", Delaware Watersheds.

"'The Wyeths: A Father and His Family'", John Corry, November 24, 1986.

Measuring Worth.

"Color Separation", Encyclopedia Britannica.

"Five Contracts for Italian Artists", William Sieger, Northeastern Illinois University.

"Delaware County Pa. Maps", Delaware County History.