Frolic Weymouth

George Alexis Weymouth (June 2, 1936 – April 24, 2016), better known as Frolic Weymouth, was an American artist, whip or stager, and conservationist. He served on the United States Commission of Fine Arts in the 1970s and was a member of the Du Pont family.

Family and personal life

His mother, Dulcinea "Deo" Ophelia Payne du Pont (November 28, 1909 – February 8, 1981), was the eldest of Eugene Eleuthere du Pont's (August 27, 1882 – December 15, 1954) four daughters. Frolic was six generations removed from Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of the DuPont corporation. In 1930, Dulcinea married investment banker George T. Weymouth (December 14, 1904 – June 7, 1990).

Weymouth was christened George Alexis Weymouth. According to a well-known story, shortly after George's birth, his 3-year-old brother, Gene, lost his foxhound. After repeatedly asking his mother, "Where's Frolic?" his exasperated mother replied, "Shut up! Here's your damn Frolic!" and thrust George before Gene. The name stuck.

Weymouth graduated from St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts in 1954. He received his undergraduate degree in American studies from Yale University in 1958. Weymouth suffered from dyslexia, but he believed that being from a prominent family enabled him to graduate from Yale. "I couldn't read and write or spell. I still can't. I don't know anything but painting pictures and being on a horse," he said in 2007.

"It's no big deal" being a du Pont, he once said. In 2000, 3,700 members of the Du Pont family attended a reunion at Longwood Gardens. Several years later Weymouth wondered aloud, "How many there are now? Du Ponts have always been busy in bed."

Weymouth was married to Anna Brelsford McCoy for 18 years until their divorce in 1979. He has one son, Mac, whom he adopted.

He resided in a converted 17th-century Swedish trading post with an 18th-century addition on called " Big Bend" (a translation of an Indian name for the land) in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, that he purchased in 1961. According to Weymouth, William Penn originally purchased the land from the Native American Lenape tribe in 1683. Big Bend was the Lenape's original term for the land, which lies along the Brandywine Creek. Other sources point to the land of Big Bend being the site of a Lenape village known as Queonemysing (place of the long fish). The chief Secetareus and his people of the Unami group, their totem the tortoise, of the Lenni-Lenape or Delawares, sold to William Penn the land between Chester Creek and Christina Creek (thus including Big Bend), December 19, 1688.

Weymouth died at the age of 79 on April 24, 2016, at his home in Chadds Ford. The announced cause of death was complications of congestive heart failure.

Artist

Weymouth's early work, done in egg tempera, was often highly personal. His portrait of his grandfather, Eugene du Pont, Jr., features the detail of a herringbone suit coat and the worn fabric of a favorite recliner. His ''The Way Back'' (1963) is a self-portrait of only his hands guiding a single horse carriage up the lane to Big Bend.

Weymouth painted portraits of Luciano Pavarotti (1982) and of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1995), Queen Elizabeth’s husband, a work which hangs in Windsor Castle. Weymouth was selected by NASA to paint at Cape Canaveral during the moon shots.

Through his circle of fellow artists, Weymouth became a close friend and relation of artist Andrew Wyeth. He was married to artist Anna Brelsford McCoy, Andrew Wyeth's niece. They divorced in 1979. Jamie Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth's son, married Weymouth's cousin Phyllis.

Weymouth was the confidant who discreetly hid Andrew Wyeth's nudes of Prussian-born neighbor and caretaker Helga Testorf

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