Wyeth spent the summer of 1903 at the Chadds Ford summer school. After a trip to Colorado and New Mexico in the fall of 1904, he painted a number of Western subjects for the Post, Scribner’s and Harper’s Monthly. After spending the summer of 1907 at Chadds Ford, Wyeth and his young wife, Carolyn, decided to leave Wilmington and settle there permanently in 1908.
Wyeth’s career as an illustrator of books and magazines was secure. He illustrated many of the great classic fictions, including Treasure Island, Robin Hood, and Robinson Crusoe. He also painted murals, including a series at the Hotel Traymore in Atlantic City in 1915 and the Apotheosis of the Family for the Wilmington (Delaware) Savings Fund Society in 1932. Later in his career he became increasingly frustrated by the commercial aspects of magazine illustration and advertising and began to paint more landscapes and genre scenes of the Chadds Ford countryside and the Maine coast where he summered.
N.C. Wyeth encouraged his children to develop their talents. Andrew, Carolyn, and Henriette became famous artists, while Ann studied music and Nathaniel, engineering. He also invited promising art students to work with him, for example, Peter Hurd and John McCoy (both became his sons-in-law). N.C. Wyeth died in 1945.
References: Allen, Douglas and Douglas Allen, Jr. N.C. Wyeth: The Collected Paintings, Illustrations, and Murals. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972 Fielding; Wyeth letters; Sunday Star (Wilmington), Jan. 23, 1910.
