Maine Atlas, the Office of the Maine Secretary of State
Black-and-white photo of a rocky coastal shoreline with rowboats and a dory pulled up on the beach, weathered wooden fishing shacks and houses, and stacked lobster traps, framed by pine trees.

The Wyeth Family

View from beach of N.C. Wyeth home on Horse Point, Port Clyde. Photo: Penobscot Marine Museum

In the summer of 1910, twenty-seven-year-old Newell Convers Wyeth and his good friend and fellow painter Sidney Marsh Chase traveled to Maine on a painting trip. In Port Clyde, N.C. found a profound connection to a place that would become central not only to his life, but to generations of his family.

By the time N.C. and Chase co-purchased what became the Wyeths’ summer home, dubbed “Eight Bells,” after the Winslow Homer painting of the same name, N.C.’s Treasure Island illustrations had become a sensation and he was considered one of the best illustrators in the country. As successful as his career in illustration was, his summer home in Port Clyde gave him a place to paint for himself. In his Maine studio, he experimented with different styles and subjects, often inspired by the coastal and fishing village scenes outside his door.

He was not the only Wyeth painting from the former ship captain’s home overlooking Port Clyde’s harbor: his children, and later his grandchildren, did too. Among them, his children Henriette, Carolyn, and Andrew, and Andrew’s son, Jamie, became visual artists. Andrew and Jamie, in particular, found their own artistic renown, and they, like N.C., created paintings that captured the people and landscapes of Midcoast Maine. Andrew’s 1948 painting, Christina’s World, depicting a family friend at her Cushing home, became one of the most recognizable images in American art.

Today, Jamie Wyeth and members of the extended family continue to live and work here and are an active part of the state’s artistic heritage.

Author: Stephanie Bouchard

The Wyeth Gallery
Black-and-white indoor photo of an older man standing in a cap and plaid shirt, a woman seated in a patterned dress, and a younger man seated beside her, all looking toward a sunlit window filled with potted plants and flowers, with a tall stack of magazines nearby.
Anna Christina Olson with Andrew Wyeth (right) and her brother Alvaro (background, in shadows) in the Olson farmhouse. Christina was the inspiration and a model for Wyeth's iconic 1949 painting, "Christina's World". Photo: Penobscot Marine Museum.
Drawing of a man in period dress standing deep in thought by a rocky stream in a bare-treed landscape, holding his hat at his side.
Beethoven (Ludwig van) by N.C. Wyeth, front view of man deep in thought, standing with hat in hand, on bank of stream near small waterfalls. Photo: Library of Congress.
Painting of a person in a small orange rowboat on dark choppy water beside a rocky, pine-topped island under a cloudy blue sky.
Half Tide by Andrew Wyeth, 1938. Photo: Collection of the Wyeth Foundation, Brandywine Museum of Art.
Painting looking out an open wooden window with a screen, showing dark evergreen trees and a hazy sky beyond.
Cat Spruces by Carolyn Wyeth, 1966. Photo: Brandywine Museum of Art.
Watercolor portrait of an older woman in a striped shirt, seen in profile, painting at an easel in a sparsely lit room.
Knitting by Jamie Wyeth, 1991. Photo: Wyeth Foundation for American Art Collection, Brandywine Museum of Art.
Oil portrait of a young woman with wavy brown hair, wearing a black coat with a white fur collar over a gold-toned top, against a mottled beige background.
Portrait of Carolyn Wyeth by Henriette Wyeth, 1931. Photo: Brandywine Museum of Art.
Photo of Laura Bush standing between an older man wearing a medal and blue ribbon and a woman in a green jacket, in a room with a framed landscape painting and lamps on side tables.
Mrs. Laura Bush with Andrew and Betsy Wyeth following the presentation of the 2007 National Medals of Arts & Humanities. Photo: National Archives.

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