Horse breeder Phyllis Wyeth, wife of artist Jamie Wyeth, dies at 78

Phyllis Mills Wyeth, the wife of celebrated Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, artist Jamie Wyeth, died Monday. She was 78.

The cause of death was not included in a statement Wednesday from the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.

Wyeth died at home with her husband at her side, according to The Longwood Funeral Home & Cremation of Matthew Genereux, Inc. in Kennett Square.

Funeral services will be private.

The Brandywine River Museum of Art plans to host a selection of paintings of Phyllis by her husband as a special tribute exhibition.

A New York City native, Phyllis Wyeth had once worked for then-U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy, and later in the Kennedy White House with the president's special assistant, but her passion was horses and racing.

A well-known and respected carriage driver, she was an accomplished thoroughbred horse breeder and owner.

At her racing stable in Chadds Ford, Wyeth bred the famed horse Union Rags, a fourth-generation descendant of her family's breeding program.

Union Rags won the Belmont Stakes in 2012 and finished seventh that year in the Kentucky Derby.

The daughter of the late James and Alice du Pont Mills grew up outside of Middleburg, Virginia, on Burnt Mill Farm, adjacent to Hickory Tree Farm, a renowned thoroughbred breeding, training and racing facility founded by her parents.

The family raised, owned and raced several top stakes winners such as “Devil's Bag,” “Believe It” and “Gone West.”

Wyeth competed in several local point-to-point races as a teenager and was a frequent attendee at Winterthur Museum's annual Point-to-Point steeplechase races along with husband, Jamie, whom she married in 1968. Jamie Wyeth is the son of famed American artist Andrew Wyeth and the grandson of artist/illustrator N. C. Wyeth.

The couple lived on the 240-acre Point Lookout Farm, purchased by Phyllis Wyeth’s great grandfather in 1903, on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border. During the summer, the Wyeths spent time at their home on Southern Island in Maine.

She played hostess to all kinds of art and cultural icons, including Rudolph Nureyev and Andy Warhol.

Joyce Hill Stoner, a University of Delaware professor of material culture and a painting conservator who knows the Wyeth family, said Phyllis Wyeth was much admired by both. 

Stoner said Phyllis was known as one of Nureyev's protective "lionesses." She even took presents to Nureyev's family members back to the USSR, "because he, of course, had defected to the U.S. and could not return in person," Stoner said.

Phyllis was featured in some of her husband's paintings and was mentioned on the pages of Andy Warhol's diary.

"Thanks to Jamie’s many paintings of his wife — over at least five decades —this forthright woman will be immortal," Stoner said.

Warhol wrote about a 1976 Thanksgiving dinner in Chadds Ford, where he stayed up until 4 in the morning at Jamie and Phyllis Wyeth's home. Andrew Wyeth, two of his sisters, George "Frolic" Weymouth and a handful of other guests were there, too.

Later, Warhol wrote that he climbed into Phyllis Wyeth's buggy and crossed the Brandywine River, his silver hair flying in the wind.

Stoner said Wyeth shared several memories with Warhol. She danced with him at Monte Carlo,.and Jamie and Warholpainted each other's portraits.

Warhol was so fascinated with Jamie Wyeth's drawings carried out in the New York City morgue, he began painting his famous skull series, Stoner said. 

Stoner said Warhol gave one of his "Self-portraits with Skull" to Phyllis, inscribing it, "to Phyliss."

"He liked to call her 'Phyl-EES," Stoner said.

A staunch advocate for the rights of the handicapped and disabled, Wyeth had used crutches and a wheelchair after being injured in an auto accident at age 20.

"I thought, 'Well, Roosevelt ruled the world from his wheelchair, I can take care of myself in mine,'" she told The Washington Post in a 1979 interview. 

Wyeth graduated from the Ethel Walker School and majored in political science at Finch College. She later attended the Columbia School of Social Work.

Wyeth was an early and major supporter of the fledgling Tri-County Conservancy, which became the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art, and was a founding member of its board. In addition to her work with the Brandywine, she was a noted philanthropist, conservationist, environmentalist and arts supporter.

Inspired by her mother, Alice du Pont Mills, who was also an environmental activist and lifelong philanthropist, Wyeth was dedicated to the environment and giving back to her community.

In Port Clyde, Maine, Wyeth founded the Herring Gut Learning Center in 1999 with the goal of teaching local children about aquaculture and marine conservation and to help preserve Maine’s traditional fishing communities.

Wyeth was later awarded the NOAA Fisheries Environmental Hero award in 2002 for her efforts with the organization. She and her husband, Jamie, were also some of the first to grant a conservation easement to the Brandywine Conservancy in 1969. That preserved 44.5 acres of their land along the west bank of the Brandywine River, permanently protecting it from development.

Phyllis worked as a teacher for the Terry Children's Psychiatric Center in Wilmington. She spent many years in Washington, D.C., working as a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts, as vice chairperson of the National Committee on Arts for the Handicapped (now known as VSA, the international organization on arts and disability), and assisting with the National Very Special Arts Festival.

She also served on multiple boards, including the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art, the H.J. Heinz Co. Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Mary Chichester duPont Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and as trustee emeritus of the Herring Gut Learning Center. She was appointed to the National Endowment for the Arts and Handicapped Advisory Task Force to the White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals and served on the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped.

Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico