Brandywine Museum of Art: Sharp Gallery: Works of Illustration from the Permanent Collection

 The final Gallery is exactly what it says it is: paintings of works used in popular illustration.  This was N. C. Wyeth's bread and butter.  His painting and illustrations graced the covers and pages of popular fiction/young adult fiction for nearly 30 years.  It is a genre that transitioned to magazines throughout his career.  

To get there you traverse a corridor with a wall festooned with paintings created by local children under the directive "Imagine Brandywine" as a celebration of March as Youth Art Month.  On the other-side is yet another amazing view of the Brandywine Creek.  

"Fairy Godmother," circa 1907

Sarah S. Stilwell Weber (1877 - 1939)

"The Fiddler," 1921

Norman Rockwell (1894 - 1978)

"Public Health and Morale," circa 1943

N. C. Wyeth (1882 - 1945)

Executed at the very end of his life as a result of supporting the nation's participation in World War II, this painting is AMAZING.  The factories' pollution is meant as a GOOD thing.  Evidence of a nation hard at work to defeat an existential threat of Fascism and the German Nazi Regime.  How differently time tells this story...

"The Pirates Cruise," 1931

Peter Hurd (1904 - 1984)

I almost ran to this one, it is so beautiful!  Winken, Blinken and Nod meet Mark Twain on the Mississippi!

"Through Mud to Glory," 1914

William Henry Dethlef Koerner (1878 - 1938)

"The Immigrants," 1899

Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle

Another view from the third floor.  Remember those millstones in Andrew Painting?  Now they are "tables" in little alcoves along the Brandywine Creek next to the Museum.