John Willard McCoy (1910–1989) was an American artist who painted
landscapes,
portraits, and
still lifes
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...
. He was married to
Ann Wyeth, daughter of
N.C. Wyeth
Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N. C. Wyeth, was an American painter and illustrator. He was the pupil of Howard Pyle and became one of America's most well-known illustrators. Wyeth created more than 3,000 ...
and sister of
Andrew Wyeth, all artists.
Life and career
Born in California, McCoy's family moved to the east coast, first to
New Jersey and then to
Wilmington, Delaware.
He graduated from
Cornell University with a degree in Fine Arts, studied for a year in France, worked briefly for the
DuPont Company
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
, then enrolled at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before completing his studies privately with N.C. Wyeth, working in his studio alongside the young Andrew Wyeth. It was while studying with the elder Wyeth that he met his future wife, Ann.
As did other members of the Wyeth family, McCoy lived in the
Brandywine River valley and along the coast of
Maine, where he found the people and landscapes he took for his subjects.
Upon N.C. Wyeth's death, McCoy and Andrew Wyeth completed a series of murals that N.C. had begun for the
Metropolitan Life Building
The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street (Manhattan), 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Desi ...
in New York City.
McCoy worked in
tempera,
watercolor, and
oil paint, and eventually preferred a
mixed media approach that entailed soaking paper in water prior to painting on it with successive layers of both oil and water-based media, which he dripped or poured on the paper in the manner of the
Abstract expressionists
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
whose work he admired.
McCoy's works are in the collections of the
Delaware Art Museum,
the
Brandywine River Museum, the
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Andrew Wyeth recalled McCoy in an interview:
I think I may well have been influenced by his rather somber look at things. There is a brooding quality, a smoldering power in his painting.
See also
*
Wyeth
Notes
References
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCoy, John W.
1910 births
1989 deaths
20th-century American painters
American male painters
Artists from Maine
Cornell University alumni
Modern painters
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni
20th-century American male artists