N.C. Wyeth ( WY uth) was encouraged to draw when he
was a child.
When he was about 20 years old he began working for a magazine, the
Saturday Evening Post. They sent him to study southwest culture and for
three months he lived among the Indians and herded sheep. He sketched
and painted pictures to show what life was like among the Indians.
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He married and he and his wife raised five children.
Their son Andrew
became one of America's foremost artists. Andrew, who was ill when he
was a child, was homeschooled and his father taught him how to be an
artist. Two more of their children, Henrietta and Carolyn, and also
their grandson, Jamie, (Andrew's son) became artists. Jamie, when he
was 21, painted a portrait of John F. Kennedy. Jamie had also been
homeschooled and trained by his father.
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N.C. studied with Howard Pyle, a man who gave free art
lessons to
students that he thought had a lot of artistic ability. Wyeth became a
book illustrator. The first book he illustrated was Robert Lewis
Stevenson's
Treasure Island. During his lifetime he drew and painted
about 3,000 pictures and illustrated 112 books.
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In the 1930's he began painting a set of large murals
for a life
insurance company, but he and one of his grandsons were both killed in
a car accident in 1945. His son Andrew and his son-in-law finished the
work.
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