The creative inspiration behind Andrew Wyeth's paintings now on display

Don Carrigan, News Center Maine, May 12, 2026

Artists need inspiration, and Andrew Wyeth found it several miles out to sea from the fishing town, on Benner and Allen Islands.

The rugged beauty and relative isolation of the islands gave plenty of chances for Wyeth to focus on his work. But that was just one part of it.

Much of his inspiration, it turns out, came from what was created on the islands by Wyeth’s wife, Betsy.

As highlighted in a new, multi-museum exhibit, By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth, she created two distinct “worlds” on those islands by building houses and other structures, roads and stone walls, all to create a landscape and a “look” to inspire and enhance her husband’s artwork. Betsy Wyeth, the exhibit curators explained, also designed the interiors of her buildings, especially on Benner Island, to look old, with a classic, early American look to woodwork, flooring and all other parts of the structures.

“She would talk about very specific floorboards in very specific places,” said Kendall DeBoer, of the Coby College Art Museum. “She had a huge stockpile of historic floorboards and here you can understand why,” she added, pointing to the old wooden boards that had been replaced in the small, shingled building that Andrew Wyeth used as his island studio.

That studio was just one of three buildings on the island when Betsy Wyeth purchased it in 1990. She then had more than half a dozen others built, but they were constructed and finished to look old.