Leaving the Wyeths in Pennsylvania


This posting of Ann Breslford McCoy will be my last one centering around the Wyeths in Pennsylvania.  (Later, I will follow their work and homes in Maine.)  Ann, daughter of Anna Wyeth McCoy, built this house on her parents' property, but it looks as beautifully old as the antique homes viewed in my earlier  posts.  I particularly love Ann's house because it is new, but you could never tell - a quality I've tried to emulate in my own home.  As I have done with the previous postings, let's first take a look at her art.  (These paintings were taken from Wyethhurdgallery.com.)

The subject matter of this painting appears to be Maine.

Leaving Chadds  Ford

Elephant Walk

The last two paintings appear to focus on Pennsylvania subject matter.

Now to the home, my main focus here, which appeared in House Beautiful in January 1988.

If you cannot read the caption under the first photo, it mentions the painting over the mantel is of Ms. McCoy at 21 by Henriette Wyeth Hurd.  Love the antique hooked rugs in this home and the previous Wyeth homes.  Note how deep the windows are indicating the thickness of the walls.  The bookcase here is a great color.

Love, love this kitchen.  All the yellow ware on the table and the shelves is antique but used everyday  

according to Ann McCoy, and it inspired my own collection.  The fireplace is to the right above but is not shown to great advantage.  This whole kitchen reminds me a bit of the Weymouth summer kitchen in my previous post.

More hooked rugs, two paintings by her father, John McCoy, a Pennsylvania-made dower chest, and again those deep windows and bookcases.  Not shown in this image is the fireplace to the right of the window.  I'm so into cozy at this time of year, and this room personifies it.

Hope you can read the small caption under the photo.  It explains the artwork and how the floorboards were collected from old farms in the area.   Either of the ladder back chairs might have been the subject matter for Leaving Chadds Ford above.

The painting above the table was an engagement present from her father.  Art is in the lifeblood of this family.  Isn't that bowl wonderful??  And again the deep, deep windows.

Same room, more antiques, more artwork, and hog scraper candlesticks on each side of the apples in the deep window.

Even if you are not in love with antiques (I have a friend who is very Zen and has never stepped foot in an antique shop; she's probably bored to tears.), you have to love this rather spare vignette.  The wonderful, unrestored corner cupboard is the star here or is it that painting, Bluebells by Henriette Wyeth or even the hooked rug.  They're all perfect.

A young neighbor plays here with whalebone miniatures and sits at a miniature desk on a windsor chair.  "The tiny Shakespeare folios also reflect Ms. McCoy's interest in miniatures."

With this house, I end my visit to Wyeth country, but you can probably tell how much it affected me as my husband and I began building and decorating our own home.  We visited this area often and were inspired each time, but as time passes design aesthetics change.  Mine did.  Still, as I post  these images from what-did-not-seem-long-ago (until I looked at the date of the magazines), I realize how much I still admire the talent and authenticity of the Wyeth family and their art.  Taste changes but also remains the same.

Affect of the Wyeths and How Tastes Change yet Remain the Same


My son asked me the other day (because I make my children critique my blog, and sometimes regret it),
"Where are you going with this, Mom?  One blog is about kitchens, another about the Wyeths, and then kitchens again.  Isn't your blog supposed to be all about kitchens?  It's a bit confusing.  You need a time line or something."  If you too are confused, let me try to clarify - over thirty years,  in both print magazines and online websites, I've observed kitchen design change.  I've saved my favorites with piles of organized magazines and folders within folders on my computer.  So, before dwelling only on "kitchens I have loved" today, I must dwell on "kitchens (and design) I have loved" yesterday because, darn it all, so many earlier kitchens were great kitchens and have molded kitchen design into what it is today.

So let's start today with two kitchens from Colonial Homes Winter 1978.  Colonial Homes, now out of print, had a huge following in its heyday.   Both kitchens here are reminiscent of the ones from my first two posts in that they both have fireplaces and are reminiscent of the Wyeth posts in that both contain antiques.

The next three images are from Early American Life, April 1985, and contain many more of the period antiques I love.  The wing chair in the first image reminds me of some of the Belgian linen chairs of today (though I'm sure it was not linen in 1985), and the woodwork reminds me of the paneling in so many of the Wyeth interiors.

Love the fruit on the tables above and below.  The bowl in the second image here is great, and I love the primitive portrait - not a Wyeth, but old.  The fireplace could be straight out of a Wyeth interior.

Another image, another great bowl, a period highboy, a settle, a windsor chair, and another primitive portrait.  So old New England.

Skipping way ahead now to a kitchen from Architectural Digest, June 2010, we see a combination of elements from the past and the present - old beams, an island countertop and flooring from reclaimed wood.  Yet, what I love here is that these early elements are combined with today's stainless shelving, black iron pot rack, and new Viking stove.  Also note the stone work surrounding the stove area.  This kitchen really works today but contains some of the past.

The next kitchen from Southern Accents, July-August 2005, also demonstrates use of old with the new - brick flooring, old butcher block combined with Wolf stove from today and a wonderful knife block.

The kitchen below from House Beautiful, November 2010, combines a wall of reclaimed wood with a beautiful Le Cornue stove, red Kitchen Aid mixer and it works.  Love the counter full of fresh broccoli and onion mounds.

And today's last kitchen from Traditional Homes, spring 1987 issue - "Colonial Warmth" is from a Greenwich Connecticut home.  If you can enlarge the text from the article, I think it says everything I have been trying to say.  

Hope you have enjoyed these kitchens, hope I have demystified the path I am taking.  My next posting will again be about Wyeth country and its interior design.  Can you tell this family and area impacted my taste??  Please be patient, hang with me, and I hope enjoy the journey.

A Huge Thank You and the Young Wyeths

Bruce Riddell's website

                                                             
First, I want to thank Greet from Belgian Pearls for sending my way such lovely people.  She was gracious enough to mention my blog on her own, and in a matter of minutes I heard from very supportive, interesting people.   Greet and her friends encouraged me to keep going, to know that there is some interest in what I post.  So, I wish all of you, but particularly my special friend, Greet, a beautiful day - a day full of sunshine and beauty just like the one above.  Thank you.

Now on to one of Andrew Wyeth's sons, Jamie, a gifted artist in his own right and one I greatly admire just as I do his father. Here is just a sampling of his work.

In addition to their home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the Jamie Wyeths live on an island off the coast of Maine during the summer months.  It is peopled with, or should we say "sheeped with," sheep.  One of them most probably inspired this great painting.  Doesn't the ram seem to be proudly overlooking  his domain?

I think his portrait of John F. Kennedy is the most memorable portrait of a too short-lived president.  He looks pensive, concerned, and oh, so young.  A tragedy that his life ended so abruptly, but this portrait lives on as Jamie's tribute to our 35th president.  (The painting is great, my resolution is not.)

This is Jamie Wyeth's painting of his father.  Here I admire how the son has captured the feeling that the father sees what ordinary people never see, and it reflects his gravity of this vision.

This painting is absolutely huge, and when you see it at the Brandywine Museum, he (I think it is a "he") looks very proud, very proud and very huge.  I think I read in one of the museum's catalogs that this pig and one of his cohorts once ate a live rooster.  Only the rooster's feathers remained in the morning.  This is a pig not to mess around with.

And now:

The above and following images are from House and Garden magazine July 1984.
This  painting hangs over the young Wyeths' living room mantel.  While the living room is reminiscent of his mother and father's home, it's decor appears to be busier.  Take a look.

All the antiques in this room are period and authentic and very Pennsylvania.  Love even the red ware plates on that great trunk.  The ladder-back chair and tea table are so beautiful, and the art - well, it speaks for itself.

These photos are of the other side of the above room.  Even the simple windsor chair is exquisite.

The bottom pictures are of Jamie Wyeth, his wife, Phyllis, and perhaps the infamous pig of a rooster's demise.

Love the dining room, its table, and the hay bale painting above the low boy.  I think the Wyeths keep as their own, paintings that mean the most to them, and I recall reading that Jamie felt that the hay bale was as much a portrait as the ones he has done of people (or pigs for that matter).  More on the Wyeths, Pennsylvania kitchens and antiques soon.  

Now, in case you, my faithful reader, feel again I am not fulfilling the title of my blog, I offer the following kitchen photos.  They appeared in Country Living, March 2000 and hope they prove to you that I do have a direction, circuitous as it may be.

Wish we could see the other side of the island where the really things interesting things lie.  Cooking does look like it is about to happen here - maybe just tea or coffee with the cups and saucers on the table.  Not as great a kitchen as the Segreto one from my previous posting, but I was desperate to publish a room that lives up to my blog's title.  Aren't the stools from Segreto so much more interesting?  Remember though this kitchen is from 2000, and, while much of this kitchen is timeless, the stools are not.  But, you "gotta" love the rack holding the white pottery and those spring-colored flowers.

And lastly, may I offer you this promise of spring:

Till next time.

b

Back to the Present

Just in case you may be tiring of the trip through my past again, here are some images of kitchens I love today.  I am an avid reader of blogs, and these kitchens have appeared on some of my favorites.  The kitchens are very different but also contain common elements.

So many things I love about this kitchen: the black La Cornue stove, the awesome set of knives to the left of it, the utensils in crocks to the right of it, the Staub pot on the rear burner, favorite spices near at hand on the back of the stove, favorite cookbooks on a nearby shelf.  Best of all, wonderful still life paintings atop the hood vent.  I could live in this kitchen.

Now a simpler looking kitchen that seems very Belgian and may have been saved from Belgian Pearls, one of my most favorite blogs.  While the stove cannot be seen, I love the cabinets, countertops and clean look, yet still leaving you with a feeling that cooking will soon occur.

Again, I like the clean look of this kitchen and included it because it has the same tolix chairs that I have in my kitchen.  In my opinion, the room appears a bit large, and the cook appears to be dashing about.  And all those dishes on the racks look wonderful, but I fear they need washing before use.

Still, there is something that made me save this image.  Could be the presence of veggies on the table.

This kitchen is the creation of Axel Pairon.  He and his mother are two Belgian designers about whom I can never read enough.  Love the openness, the beams, the weathered posts and table.  Now, I am a real lover of beiges and browns, but the tangerine color of these chairs looks great here.

Again, a very Belgian-looking kitchen with lots of vegetables visible under the island.  The desk on the left is something I wish I could fit in my own kitchen, but no such luck.  My kitchen table must double as my desk.  Great wooden bowl, one of my passions, rests in the foreground.

I cannot remember where I saw this kitchen, but I know I saved it because of the black island.  My kitchen cabinets, built by my husband, are stained a mellow pine color.  I often think of painting them black, but paint would be forever.  What if I hate it in my kitchen - difficult to go back to stain after paint.  My designer daughter-in-law thinks it would look great, but I'm too scared to try it so keep looking at other kitchens whose owners are braver than I.

A kitchen by Steven Gambrel that has cabinets the color of mine which makes me second guess myself on the black thing.  How much do you love that fireplace right next to the kitchen table!  So cozy.  I'm into cozy.

This kitchen is from the movie It's Complicated.  Never could figure out why Meryl Streep wanted a new kitchen when this one looks great and when so many wonderful meals happened around that table.  Notice again the touch of orange.  At the risk of offending a reader, I would get rid of the fabric under the counter on the left.  I hate (sorry to be so opinionated) fabric instead of doors.  It alway looks messy, and I know it is going to suffer when cooks' hands reach inside.  Bad kitchen idea.

Ok, as you can see this kitchen is from Segreto Finishes.  It is my new most favorite.  I love so many things about it.  Again, a black La Cornue stove, oils and vinegar nearby, that great window over the sink, the mellow color of the cabinets, island and ceiling, and those industrial-restoration-hardware- looking stools.  The lighting, the glass-doored refrigerator, the shelving with the copper pots - all great.
Haven't figured out why the ladder is next to the refrigerator, but there must be a good reason and I love it.  Have saved this image as my screen saver just so it can be savored and studied every time I open the computer.  Love, love it, but next time it's back to the past to see another Wyeth-esque home.