N.C. Wyeth: Promising Beginnings

"Bucking Bronco" by N.C. Wyeth

"As N.C. Wyeth moved through his middle and later teens, he attended first the Mechanic Arts High School, then the Massachusetts Normal Art School, and finally the Eric Pape School of Art. That schooling provided a solid foundation for his work with Howard Pyle. He could draw well, not only from the pose model, but also from his imagination and retentive visual memory. His figures had bounce and motion. Crayons, ink, brushes, and pigments were already old friends. He was ready for the enlarging experience of Wilmington and the Pyle group.

He fell naturally into the pattern of long hours of concentrated work, drawing and painting from the model, constructing, imagined heads in a wide range of types and expressions, and putting his best into the compositions to be submitted at the weekly criticism meetings. His first composition was a new England, haying scene, a familiar theme since childhood, and it aroused Pyle's interest and that of the class. He found that the outdoor days of his childhood were an unexpected treasury of memories that he could pillage for countless subjects. Then, too, he was beginning to sense the possibilities in Pyle's passion for the Early American background.

As he was aggressive and had a sharp eye for opportunity, he wanted to experience some contact with the mysterious world of publishing, which would have such a command over his future. He stopped over in New York on the way home for Christmas holidays and carried his portfolio around to a number of publishers. He came from the art editors' offices exhilarated and much more secure about his illustrative ability. They had treated him as a serious professional, and he had a manuscript in his pocket from a magazine prophetically named 'Success'. He had a great deal to tell his family when he finally arrived home.

Shortly after his return to Wilmington, a color sketch of a bronco buster he had submitted to the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia was approved, and he settled down to make a finished painting of his first important commission. A few months later a Wyeth 'Saturday Evening Post' cover was on the newsstands across the country and he was doing his best to conceal his pride in the face of the congratulations of his fellows.

Pyle was both happy and apprehensive for his new student. He probably feared that Wyeth might become overconfident and smug - perhaps the boy was rushing ahead into professionalism before all the foundations were secure. So he prescribed a cessation from all professional effort for a while and suggested that Wyeth concentrate on disciplined drawing from cast and model."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Brandywine Tradition" by Henry C. Pitz.)