Editing Andrew Wyeth (section)

== Chadds Ford Upbringing ==

Andrew Newell Wyeth was born on July 12, 1917, in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the youngest of five children of N.C. Wyeth and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. His father, then America's most successful illustrator, provided both artistic training and the environment—the Brandywine Valley's rolling hills, historic farms, and distinctive light—that would become Andrew's primary subject matter. Home-schooled due to a hip ailment, Andrew absorbed his father's techniques while developing a more introspective approach that would distinguish his mature work from his father's dramatic illustrations.<ref name="anderson">{{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Nancy |title=Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In |year=2014 |publisher=National Gallery of Art |location=Washington}}</ref>

The Brandywine Valley's landscape, which Andrew painted repeatedly throughout his life, provided continuity between childhood experience and artistic production. The farms, fields, and weathered buildings he knew from earliest memory became subjects that he explored with intensity others reserved for changing subject matter. This rootedness, unusual among artists who typically seek varied inspiration, concentrated his attention while limiting his range in ways critics alternately praised and condemned.<ref name="meryman"/>

His technical training came primarily from his father, who taught him the fundamentals of drawing and painting that would enable his later virtuosity. The apprenticeship approach, unusual in an era of formal art education, provided intensive individual instruction while embedding Andrew in the artistic tradition his father represented. By his late teens, Andrew had developed abilities that enabled professional work, though his style was already departing from his father's more theatrical approach.<ref name="anderson"/>