Andrew Wyeth’s hold on the American imagination made him the country’s most popular living artist

By Renée Harrison Drake

Renée Drake and her husband, Max Drake, stand beside "The Woodshed," painted by Andrew Wyeth in 1944.

I was lucky to have a mother who appreciated art and who introduced me to three generations of paintings by the Wyeth family. Although I grew up in Virginia, my mother was from Greenville, Del., which is not far from the artists’ home in Chadds Ford, Pa. On our regular trips there, she would always take us to the Brandywine River Museum to see the paintings of N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, and Jamie Wyeth. I never tired of looking at those wonderful canvases. They welcomed me like old friends whenever I visited the museum tucked beside the river.

While N.C.’s paintings inspired me to read the classic works of literature he illustrated and Jamie’s menagerie of animals were both intriguing and delightful, Andrew’s paintings made me appreciate the landscape of the Brandywine Valley.