Expanding the Wyeth Experience Through A New Partnership

Andrew Wyeth created more than 7,000 works in his astonishing, seven-decade career, yet only 15% of these have ever been exhibited.

That’s about to change, thanks to an incredible new partnership between the Wyeth Foundation for American Art—set up by the artist and his wife and business manager, Betsy, in 2002—the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and the Farnsworth Art Museum. As early as fall 2023, never-before-seen works by Andrew Wyeth will be on view in the Farnsworth’s Wyeth Study Center and Hadlock Galleries, inviting visitors to discover an unknown side of this celebrated artist.

This new partnership is about more than just exhibiting works that were previously archived, however—it’s about expanding the narratives around Wyeth, his work and that of his contemporaries, and the places that he loved. It is because of this partnership, for example, that the Farnsworth is able to proudly share this traditional hand-crafted birchbark canoe by Passamaquoddy artist and activist David Moses Bridges (19622017). Bridges learned from his great-grandfather Sylvester Gabriel how to build canoes that were sturdy enough to navigate the Atlantic Ocean and sleek enough to slice easily among the bays and rivers. He harvested materials with Wyeth to build this canoe on Allen Island. On loan from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, the birchbark canoe offers an opportunity to share stories about a friendship, about Maine, and about Passamaquoddy communities and artistic disciplines.