The Brandywine River Museum 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.
Housed in a converted nineteenth century gristmill, 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 Brandywine Creek and rolling countryside that inspired the Brandywine School earlier in the early 20th century.
The museum also owns and operates tours of two nearby National Historic Landmarks: the N. C. Wyeth House and Studio and the Kuerner Farm, inspiration for nearly 1,000 works of art by Andrew Wyeth from the 1930s until his death in 2009. Outside the museum are beautifully maintained Wildflower and Native Plant Gardens.
The museum was founded in 1971 as part of the Brandywine Conservancy thru the efforts of “Frolic” Weymouth. He has been on the board since its founding.
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or museum:
“Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“[A] Dada exhibition. Another one! What’s the matter with everyone wanting to make a museum piece out of Dada? Dada was a bomb ... can you imagine anyone, around half a century after a bomb explodes, wanting to collect the pieces, sticking it together and displaying it?”
—Max Ernst (1891–1976)