Brandywine River Museum of Art
The Brandywine River Museum of Art is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine Creek. The museum showcases the art of Andrew Wyeth, a major American realist painter, and his family: his father N.C. Wyeth, illustrator of many children’s classics, and his son Jamie Wyeth, a contemporary American realist painter.
The museum is housed in a converted nineteenth century mill with a dramatic steel and glass addition overlooking the banks of the Brandywine River. The museum's permanent collection features American illustration, still life works, and landscape painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Harvey Dunn, Peter Hurd, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, William Trost Richards, and Jessie Willcox Smith. The glass-wall lobby overlooks the river and rolling countryside that inspired the Brandywine School earlier in the early 20th century.
The museum also owns and operates tours of three nearby National Historic Landmarks: the N. C. Wyeth House and Studio, the Kuerner Farm, inspiration for nearly 1,000 works of art by Andrew Wyeth for more than 70 years, and the Andrew Wyeth Studio, where the artist painted from 1940 until just before his death. The building also served as his home; he and his wife Betsy moved in as newlyweds and lived here until the early 1960s, raising their two sons. Outside the museum are beautifully maintained wildflower and native plant gardens.
The museum is a program of the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art. It opened in 1971 through the efforts of "Frolic" Weymouth, who also served on its board.
