John W. McCoywas an American artist who paintedlandscapes,portraits, andstill lifes. He was married toAnn Wyeth, daughter of renowned illustrator/painter N.C. Wyeth and sister of the renowned artist Andrew Wyeth.
Born in California, McCoy's family moved to the east coast, first toNew Jerseyand then toWilmington, Delaware. He graduated fromCornell Universitywith a degree in Fine Arts, studied for a year in France, worked briefly for theDuPont Company, then enrolled at thePennsylvania Academy of the Fine Artsbefore 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 theBrandywine Rivervalley and along the coast ofMaine, 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 theMetropolitan Life Buildingin New York City.
McCoy worked intempera,watercolor, andoil paint, and eventually preferred amixed mediaapproach 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 theAbstract expressionistswhose work he admired.
McCoy's works are in the collections of theDelaware Art Museum,theBrandywine River Museum, theSanta 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.”
SOLD - Inland Fisherman, Watercolor and pencil on paper, 14 x 20 inches