For art lovers, there is no feeling quite like standing in front of a painting you love. At the Brandywine River Museum of Art, we revel in seeing the incredible reactions inspired in our visitors by the artwork in our galleries. To capture those moments, our Museum Shop has transformed some of your most beloved paintings into wearable works of art. Learn the stories behind some of the most memorable paintings that have graced our galleries and celebrate the artists who created them by treating yourself to one of these beautiful gifts.
During the month of August, we remember and celebrate the iconic spirit of Frolic Weymouth, with a memorable image in the Brandywine Collection that captures the beauty of a field of wildflowers in bloom on a summer afternoon at his home in Chadds Ford, August.
One of Frolic’s most inspiring quotes is “Every day you must look for something beautiful because beauty is everywhere.” This image, rendered so beautifully on a silk chiffon signature scarf creates a lasting tribute to a gifted artist, one of the founders of our organization, and our friend.
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Pennsylvania Landscape by Andrew Wyeth
The umbrella featuring the art of Andrew Wyeth’s Pennsylvania Landscape is a gorgeous reflection of the Brandywine Valley. Did you know it also makes reference to an important Revolutionary War battle. In Pennsylvania Landscape, Wyeth depicts the 18th-century Gideon Gilpin House, a part of the Brandywine Battlefield, visible between the branches of a massive buttonwood or sycamore tree. The Major General Lafayette engaged in the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, his first military engagement in America. Though since disproven, Revolutionary lore long-held that Lafayette, who was quartered at the Gilpin House, received medical attention for his wounded leg under the tree shown. Now known as the "Lafayette Sycamore," the 400-year-old sentinel still stands today. Ever editing real life to fit his vision, Wyeth also included the Brandywine River behind the tree which is actually located about a mile from this spot.
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Pumpkinhead-Self Portrait and The Raven by Jamie Wyeth
The story behind the painting, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's 2014 Jamie Wyeth retrospective, involves a friend, a pumpkin, and the artist’s wonderful sense of humor:
“I sent [the National Academy] Pumpkinhead and they didn’t want it. They said ‘No, we want a portrait of you.’ And I kept on saying, ‘Well, that is me.’” Wyeth began this painting as a portrait of his friend Jimmy Lynch, but eventually finished by painting himself wearing the pumpkin as a mask. Cropped at the ankles and wearing a too-small antique military jacket, he stands alone in a hazy field strewn with dry autumn leaves. To the artist, the jack-o-lantern carries an eerie charm: “I always loved the carved face just leering at you…”
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Jewelry by Donald Pywell Jewelry inspired by artist Andrew Wyeth's painting Airborne that can be purchased at the Brandywine River Museum of Art
Airborne by Andrew Wyeth
The art of Andrew Wyeth is recreated in sterling silver jewelry by artists Dorothy and Nora Pywell, following in the footsteps of renowned artist Donald Pywell. These pieces are part of one of Donald’s most impressive collections, created over a thirty-year period for Andrew Wyeth’s wife, Betsy James Wyeth.
Like all the pieces in this collection, the feather jewelry pictured above is inspired by one of Andrew’s famous pieces of art, Airborne. The painting shows a traditional Cape Cod-style house on Benner Island in Maine, with feathers dancing in the breeze, momentarily and magically appearing. Pywell also created other stunning jewelry pieces using elements from Wyeth’s paintings such as Spring Beauty (a delicate flower) and Soaring (a majestic bird in flight).
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The Carry by Andrew Wyeth
This stylish and sturdy tote bag keeps you organized while featuring the stunning image The Carry by Andrew Wyeth. In the essay by Joyce Hill Stoner in the Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect exhibition catalogue, she explains how Wyeth began to incorporate his loose watercolor technique into the handling of his later tempera paintings. Water was a significant theme in Wyeth’s work, and The Carry depicts a rushing river and a calmer pool, which served as a “self-portrait” of the duality of the artist’s personality – reflecting both his wild side and his calm side.
These are just a few of the ways you can immerse yourself in the world captured by some of your favorite artists in their paintings. On your next visit to the Museum, stop by our shop (or visit us online) and view the hundreds of gifts that embody everything that this family of artists loved about the Brandywine Valley and that made them so proud to call this peaceful place home.
