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.

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Brigid Berlin

Brigid Berlin and Ann Getty’s classic costume jewelry goes on the block.

By Renée Harrison Drake

As the fall auction season gets underway, fashionistas have set their sights on sales of costume jewelry, a specialized category that has become one of the “hot” new collecting fields for women of all ages. On October 2 at DOYLE NEW YORK’s auction galleries, the excitement will kick off with a party co-hosted by Doyle and Interview magazine to celebrate and preview the October 7 auction of two eclectic collections belonging to two iconic women: the famous society and Andy Warhol Factory girl Brigid Berlin, and San Francisco philanthropist, art collector, and style icon Ann Getty.

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Lincoln’s petition from school children in Concord, Mass. serves as a personal example of Lincoln’s work to abolish slavery. (Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s)

Lincoln’s letters sell for over $3 million.

By Renée Harrison Drake

Collectors of important manuscripts had a thrill at the beginning of April when Sotheby’s offered Presidential and other Manuscripts from the Dr. Robert Small Trust at auction. Rarely has a group of political manuscripts such as those in the Small collection ever come to auction, and the extensive collection, comprised of 111 lots, offered an unusual look into the public and private sides of many of America’s major historical figures.

One of the most interesting things about the Small Collection as a whole is the insight into American politics of days past and the issues those politicians grappled with that are present in our own political arena today. In this election year, which has proved so far to have a particularly heated race in the Democratic Party, the candidates are experiencing many of the very same problems that faced candidates over one hundred years ago. The tedium of the campaign trail, barbs from other candidates even insults aimed at sitting presidents were also part of the political landscape back then and are documented throughout the collection in many of the rare examples of political correspondence collected by Dr. Small. For example, in a letter written by former President Millard Fillmore in 1862 he rails against President Lincoln and calls him a “tyrant” who “makes my blood boil” and Lincoln’s predecessor James Buchanan wrote a letter in which he washes his hand of any responsibility for the Civil War writing, “No act or omission of mine has produced this terrible calamity.” The echoes of these statesmen sound eerily familiar today.

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