Betsy james wyeth net worth
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It's very easy for us to see him as Andrew Wyeth, but when she met him he was just this 22-year-old blond-haired blue-eyed kid named Andy who was doing all these crazy watercolours.”
“Their first date, she took him to where he would eventually paint Christina's World—you don't have to be an Andrew Wyeth fan just to take a step back and see how incredible that is,” Victoria adds.
Her family vacationed in, and ultimately moved to, Cushing, Maine, where at age 17 she met Andrew Wyeth on July 12, 1939—his twenty-second birthday. In partnership with Colby College, students and researchers now study ecology, chemistry, and cultural geography on the island.
Betsy James Wyeth is survived by her sons, Nicholas Wyeth and his wife, Lee, of Elkton, MD and Cushing, ME, and James “Jamie” Browning Wyeth, of Wilmington, DE and Tenants Harbor, ME; her granddaughter, Victoria Browning Wyeth, of Philadelphia, PA; as well as several nieces and nephews including Amy Cook Morey of the Wyeth Study Center in Rockland, ME.
As soon as it re-opens to the public, the Brandywine River Museum of Art is planning to honor the life of Betsy Wyeth with a memorial tribute of 18 Andrew Wyeth works, depicting his wife and muse, created over the decades.
Tags:arts · Betsy James Wyeth.
For more than 30 years he would continue to paint the Olson family, their home, and countless objects associated with them. Chadds Ford · Featured · obituaries
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“She died very peacefully and I was holding her hand—it brings me great comfort to know that she left this world with me squeezing on to her.”ObituariesAndrew WyethBetsy Wyeth
Area mourns passing of Betsy Wyeth
Betsy James Wyeth
PENNSBURY — The Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art announced the death of Betsy James Wyeth on April 21, 2020.
It is now the third largest funder of exhibitions, publications and fellowships devoted to the study of American Art. Through its generosity were made possible major projects such as the research for, and publication of N. C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings.
In the late 1960s, Betsy was a powerful force behind the creation of the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
I think the guys in the funeral home thought I was a little screwy,” Victoria says. “If she hadn't pushed him to do all those temperas,” Victoria says, “he never would have become the artist that he was.”
Betsy was also Andrew’s most dedicated curator, organising his exhibitions and spending countless days compiling his catalogue and interviewing him about his processes.
Of their collaborative process, Betsy once told Andrew’s biographer Richard Merryman: “It’s like I’m a director and I had the greatest actor in the world.” All the while, Betsy cared for their sons Nicholas and Jamie Wyeth—Nicholas has gone on to become an art dealer and Jamie an artist. Together with Andrew, she was a major benefactor in the fields of art and education.
Born in East Aurora, New York, on September 26, 1921, Betsy Merle James was the daughter of the late Merle James and Elizabeth Browning James.
The pair met in 1939 on Andrew’s 22nd birthday, and on their first outing together, the 17-year-old Betsy introduced the artist to a neighbour, Christina Olson and her brother Alvaro Olson. The couple was married the following year on May 15, 1940, and moved to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. “She believed in him when no one else did. Betsey pointed to a 1936 tempera on the floor, later titled Young Swede, and said that she wanted to see more paintings like that.
It was Betsy who titled the painting—and modelled for the figure’s torso and head. According to their granddaughter Victoria Wyeth, Betsy died peacefully at her home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Following Andrew Wyeth’s death in 2009, Betsy generously gifted her husband’s studio to the Brandywine River Museum of Art.
Now a National Historic Landmark, the Andrew Wyeth Studio is open to the public seasonally for tours.
In addition to managing the business side of Andrew Wyeth’s career, Betsy had a passion for historic houses and architecture.
The museum plans to honour Betsy Wyeth, when it reopens after the COVID-19-related shutdown, with an exhibit of 18 works her husband made depicting her over the years.
Betsy Wyeth died at home in Chadds Ford after several years of declining health, a family spokesperson told The Philadelphia Inquirer. She made a significant contribution to the study of American art.
The artist was buried on the Olson property, and Betsy will be buried there beside him.
On another early date, Andrew took Betsy to his studio in Port Clyde, Maine, and proceeded to show off his watercolours. Betsy was a catalyst in the creation and opening of the Brandywine River Museum of Art and was a visionary in the worlds of art and architecture.
In 1976 she published the first book on her husband’s work, Wyeth at Kuerners, followed by Christina’s World in 1982. She was also a published author, art collector and a driving force in the career of her husband, artist Andrew Wyeth—serving as his muse, business manager and chief archivist of his work.