Noah’s Ark Study, Andrew Wyeth, drybrush watercolor on paper. Original is in the collection of the Wyeth Foundadion for American Art, I don’t know the size. Image is referenced from a page on the site of the local PBS affiliate, WHYY. The full size image is here.
Starting in 2023, the Brandywine Museum of Art (AKA the Brandywine River Museum) i Chadds Ford, PA, began to mount exhibits of Aandrew Wyeth’s work drawn from the family Foundation’s collection, which includes some 7,000 works.
These are most often works on paper, which can’t be exhibited often, and many of which have never been on public display. This is an ongoing project, with a new exhibit drawn from the collection several times a year.
I had the good fortune of seeing the first exhibit, “Home Places’ which consisted of some of my favorite examples of his work — drybrush watercolors of architectural subjects.
Among the works on display, I was particularly taken with this one, a beautiful example of his mastery of water media textures, in spite of being a study rather than a finished painting.
I’m not sure what the title refers to. As far as I can tell, there was never a finished painting done from this study, and the “Noah’s Ark” reference is somewhat enigmatic, perhaps referring to the tendency of the Brandywine River in that area to flood.