The Dredger

The Dredger

Andrews, Sperry

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/16/arts/design/16andrews.html?_r=0 http://www.nps.gov/wefa/learn/historyculture/sperryandrews.htm

15” x 22”

843

local artist and illustrator, worked at Weir Farm Sperry Andrews, a painter who with his wife, Doris Bass Andrews, helped preserve the home of the influential American artist Julian Alden Weir as a national park, died on July 14 in Danbury, Conn. He was 87 and lived at the Weir farmhouse in Ridgefield, Conn. The cause was pneumonia, his family said. He and his wife, who was also an artist, moved to the area in 1948, and later into the farmhouse on Nod Hill Road, once owned by Weir, a 19th-century American Impressionist. In the early 1880's Weir turned his farm into a country retreat where his artist friends would visit and paint the surrounding landscape. They included Albert Pinkham Ryder, Childe Hassam, John Twachtman and John Singer Sargent. Some of them, including Weir, were among the founders of the group known as the Ten, painters who formed the core of American Impressionism. The Weir property, which grew to 238 acres when he owned it, had been divided up and sold in pieces over the years by the family when the Andrewses bought the farmhouse in 1958; one of Weir's daughters had donated substantial portions of her share to the Nature Conservancy as the Weir Nature Preserve. In the late 1970's and early 80's, when nearby properties, including parcels of the original farmstead, were being developed for residential use, the Andrewses and others began their effort to establish their farm as a historic site. The 74-acre Weir Farm National Historic Site, which straddles the towns of Ridgefield and Wilton, became a national park in 1990, the only one dedicated to American painting and painters. The Andrewses were granted lifetime tenancy and, with Mr. Andrews's death, the Weir house will now be open to park visitors. The National Park Service offers guided tours of the property, and the Weir Farm Trust, a private organization that works with the service, runs educational programs and an artist-in-residence program. Charles Sperry Andrews III was born in Manhattan in 1917. He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York and later at the Art Students League of New York, where he met his future wife when they shared a classroom easel. He served in the Army during World War II. Mr. Andrews's work, primarily oil and watercolor landscapes, has been exhibited at several galleries in Connecticut and Manhattan. In 1994 he was elected to the National Academy of Design. Some of his work will be displayed at the visitors' center at the Weir farm, beginning Sept. 14.

WSPAC

watercolor

watercolor

lower left