Randuwa II: April 2026

Thursday, April 2, 2026

Brandywine Park: The Josephine Fountain

On my way back home I went through Wilmington, DE and stopped at the Brandywine Zoo and Riverside Park It was a delight to see that they had planted dozens of new cherry trees to join the sometimes century old crew currently glorifying the space. A couple of pics of the trees around the fountain.

Brandywine Museum of Art: Second Floor, Special Exhibition: "John Sloan's Street Theater"

With every successive floor upward, the Brandywine Museum of Art adds a gallery! How clever. Every floor hosts a gallery space in the gigantic Barn structure, but an addition creates more as you climb up. What is consumed by a large gift shop and adjoining cafe on the ground floor is replaced by an additional gallery, public restrooms and curatorial offices on the second. The third floor is unencumbered by any distractions and open to hosting three galleries. Architecturally, the integration between the old and the new holds a cohesion that both anchors one to the solid past while embracing a future of limitless possibilities. The physical museum you get once you are inside is so much more than what the exterior would seem to promise from the outside.

A palette cleanser awaits us in the second gallery on the second floor. A little focus exhibition of etchings by the regional artist John Sloan. A personal favorite from the Ash Can School, it's a wonderful reminder that artists in the 19th and 20th centuries often diversified in order to make their monthly dime. In a heart, beat I could relate these works to those of any number of other artists like French post impressionists: Honore Daumier and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, or the American contemporary artist, Edward Hopper.

The power in these images rests in their nod to modernity and the rapidly evolving ethos of American mores. All by American Artist, John Sloan (1871 - 1951), 5 images to represent the 35 or so in the exhibition.

"Girls Sliding," 1915

"Sculpture In Washington Square," 1925

"Subway Stairs," 1923

"Sunbathing On The Roof," 1925

"Easter Eve, Washington Square," 1926

Brandywine Museum of Art: Second Floor, Linda L. Bean Gallery

So much like its first floor counterpart, the Linda L. Bean gallery is likewise low-ceiling-ed and cozy. Here are the works at the heart of the Museum's "raison d'etre". Here a Wyeth, There a Wyeth, EVERYWHERE a Wyeth! Here are some of the paintings that stood out to me. Enjoy!

SELECTED WORKS BY:

N. C. Wyeth, 1882 - 1945

Andrew Wyeth, 1917 - 2009

Jamie Wyeth, 1946 -

"Island Funeral," 1934

N. C. Wyeth

"Lester," 1963

Jamie Wyeth

Jamie was 17 years old when he painted this portrait of a local man.

"The Raven," 1980

Jamie Wyeth

Jaime wrote of this painting: "I was alone for two months when I was doing [The Raven], and I got this whole thing of, 'Is it alive with me, in the dark?' Totally freaked me out."

"Portrait of a Pig," 1970

Jamie Wyeth

"Draft Age," 1965

Jamie Wyeth

"Bill Loper with Big Tree Trunk," 1934

Andrew Wyeth

"The Pledge," 1921

N. C. Wyeth

"The Last of the Chestnuts," circa 1916

N. C. Wyeth

"A Very Small Dog," 1980

Jamie Wyeth

DETAIL "A Very Small Dog"

Brandywine Museum of Art: Highlights from the Permanent Collection

With a focus on the prodigious careers of the Wyeth family: N. C. Wyeth (1882 - 1945), three of his children who also pursued an Artist's life: Henrietta Wyeth Hurd (1907 - 1997), Carolyn Wyeth (1909 - 1994) and Andrew Wyeth (1917 - 2009); and his Grandson, Jamie Wyeth (1949 - ), the Brandywine Museum of Art inhabits a collection of buildings familiar to the artist and his family. The original structures have been modernized and incorporated into a beautiful museum focused on American regionalism. There are 5 galleries three of which inhabit different levels of a monumental barn that greets the visitor at the complex's entrance.

We will begin our visit on the ground floor with a painting from the museum's permanent collection. The galleries in this building had low ceilings, exposed original beams, and a palpable sense of intimacy. The works run the gamut of styles and include artists active from about the mid-19th through the later-20th centuries. A lot of familiar names and more than enough delight.