{"id":5253,"date":"2011-10-19T15:05:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T19:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=5253"},"modified":"2011-10-19T15:05:21","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T19:05:21","slug":"history-made-personal-wyeth-portrait-of-chris-sanderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=5253","title":{"rendered":"History Made Personal: Wyeth Portrait of Chris Sanderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gene Pisasale<\/strong>, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Portrait of Chris Sanderson by Andrew Wyeth.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Brandywine Valley has become associated over the years with many famous artists, most notably Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth. Wyeth was later to become his best known student. When N.C. Wyeth set up his studio in Chadds Ford after the turn of the 20th<\/sup> century, he gained recognition for illustrating many popular novels, including \u201cTreasure Island\u201d and \u201cRobinson Crusoe\u201d. Wyeth\u2019s home was not far from Washington\u2019s Headquarters within what is now known as Brandywine Battlefield Park. Chris Sanderson and his mother lived in that house from 1906-1922 and became good friends with the Wyeth family.<\/p>\n

Chris and his mother posed for many portraits by Wyeth and members of his family. N.C. Wyeth\u2019s gifted son Andrew painted a large portrait of Chris in 1937, welcoming him and his mother back to Chadds Ford after they\u2019d moved away from the area. Andrew invited Chris and his mother Hanna over to his home for dinner on April 30, 1937 to view the portrait. Hanna later wrote that the painting was \u201cso absolutely perfect that my astonishment knew no bounds\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The painting shows Chris (around the age of 55) standing dapperly in a brown suit, holding a map of Chester County in the foreground, green rolling hills in the distance. Bucolic countryside wrapped around isolated houses, a woman in Colonial-period garb working in the fields, is overshadowed in the upper right hand corner by dark storm clouds, rain beginning to drench the area. This may have been subtle symbolism by the artist, as storm clouds were gathering over Europe, Hitler having invaded the Rhineland in 1936.<\/p>\n

Standing before the painting, the viewer is drawn both to Chris\u2019s finger- which is pointing to the map of Chester County- and his eyes, piercing the scene, which seem to be telling us \u201cPay attention\u2026 important things happened here\u2026 The young Marquis de Lafayette fought alongside George Washington\u2019s troops at the Battle of the Brandywine, the largest land battle in North America up until the Civil War\u2026 Artists have painted our beautiful countryside, which holds many treasures for you to find\u2026 Come and enjoy what we know here\u2026You will learn much about our heritage and find a sense of history\u2026 your history\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The portrait of Chris Sanderson by Andrew Wyeth is just one of many paintings within the museum by members of the Wyeth family, Peter Hurd, John McCoy and others who knew and loved Chris. Their work- portraits, landscapes and still lifes- is a testament not only to the beauty of this region, but also to the inner beauty of this man, who preserved these and other priceless artifacts for all to see. Visit the Sanderson Museum – A Man’s Life, A Nation’s History at 1755 Creek Road (old Route 100) in Chadds Ford, PA just North of Route 1 or on-line at www.SandersonMuseum.org<\/a>. For information on the author of this article, visit www.GenePisasale.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gene Pisasale, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com The Brandywine Valley has become associated over the years with many famous artists, most notably Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth. Wyeth was later to become his best known student. When N.C. Wyeth set up his studio in Chadds Ford after the turn of the 20th century, he gained recognition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[39,512,186],"class_list":["post-5253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-featured","tag-chadds-ford","tag-sanderson","tag-wyeth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}