Anne Warner West

Anne Warner West died the afternoon of Friday, November 10, 2006 at Heron Point in Chestertown, MD. She was 97. A native of Wilmington, DE, Anne lived most of her married life in Centreville, where she lived with her husband and two sons. Educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, she painted local landscapes of the Eastern Shore life. In the early 1930''s,while at art school in Philadelphia, she won the prestigious Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship, where she painted landscapes throughout Europe, including England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Ital and France. She is best known for her paintings in oil and water color in the Impressionist style. She married Charles M. West, Jr., who she had met at Chester Springs, the country school of the Pennsylvania Academy. Initially they lived in Indianapolis, IN, where he was teaching at the John Herron School of Art. Later, when Charles and Anne settled with their two sons in Centreville in 1946, they had no idea that their interest in painting local landscapes would provide a permanent record of the history of Queen Anne''s, Kent and Talbot counties. The Wests had high regard for the French Impressionists of the 1970''s, who tried to create a vivid "impression" of a scene with bold displays of vibrant color, always deliberately avoiding the detailed rending of a photographic copy. Work similar to theirs is sometimes called "Post Impressionist" or, more recently, the "Pennsylvania Impressionists" or the "Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts School." Other influences from Wilmington, DE, the original family home of Anne West, are known as the "Howard Pyle School" or the "Brandywine School" of painting and illustration best known in the Wyeth family, including N.D., Andrew and Jamie. Anne West was the eldest of five children, the daughter of Irving and Marian Tallman Warner of Wilmington, DE. When very young, Anne had two bouts with scarlet fever and lost a good deal of her hearing. She was taught to read lips and wore a hearing aid most of her life. Her skill at lip reading with limited hearing allowed her to fit in with hearing society and pursue her career as a professionally trained artist. From the early days, the Warners were Quakers and had long been established in the Wilmington and Philadelphia area, having arrived in the mid 1600s.s Anne West''s father, Irving was one of the last to continue the Quaker convention of addressing his children with the familiar form "thee." When asked by one daughter why he spoke in that funny way, he responded: "because I love thee". Anne West''s husband was a native of Centreville and was the son of Minnie and Charles M. West, Sr., a farm boy who eventually became a Centreville shopkeeper, farm manager and a director of the Centreville National Bank. His son, no businessman, had been sent to textile school in Philadelphia only to catch the attention of art professors who offered him a full scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy, the oldest and most prestigious art school in America. The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts was founded by Charles Wilson Peale, famous artist and naturalist of the Colonial and Revolutionary War periods. As indicated by a state historical marker, Peaerl was born on a farm near Centreville just south of the 4-H Park. The Wests chose a variety of locations for their paintings, but favorite scenes were of the Eastern Shore - quiet farm landscapes and slow river boats, changing views of the old Queen Anne''s County Court House, sail boat races on the Chester River, the distinctive houses, ruined barns, storage tanks and the red wooden fertilizer factory building of the old wharf in Centreville. Other scenes are of swimmers at Rolph''s Whart, old Victorial homes and local stores, snowy streets and summer gardens, portraits of cooks, fishermen and children, bathers under striped umbrellas at Ocean City, local dance halls and cook houses, work boats at Oxford or Kent Narrows, steamer trips on the Old Bay Line-Eastern Shore life as it was in the ''30s, ''40s and ''50s, before the changes that came with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Some scenes depict familiar buildings in unfamiliar buildings in unfamiliar settings-revealing that the artist sometimes deliberately rearranged real elements to build imagined compositions. Throughout, the Wests used a style of painting partly borrowed from Europe to record the vitality and color of this vanishing and distinctively American rural landscape. It was during their time in Indianapolis that the U.S. became involved in World War II. Charles came to work as a draftsman at Indianapolis defense industries, and two sons were born- in 1941 and 1943, Charles M. West III and Thomas G. West. Anne won many prizes for their paintings over the years - in New York and Chicago, Indianapolis and Wilmington, Rehoboth and Easton. Working with renowned architectural sculptor Lee Lawrie, Anne and Charles helped to start the Academy of the Arts in Easton. They also instigated the installation of the bronze statue of George Washington by Lawrie at Washington College (a duplicate of the marble statue at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC). Charles West died in 1972 and is buried in the West family plot in Centreville. Anne West lived at Heron Point in Chestertown, where she was to have celebrated her 98th birthday in December. Her painting are on exhibit at the "West Gallery" on Lawyer''s Row in Centreville. She is survived by her two sons, Charles and Thomas, as well as three siblings; Emalea Warner Trentman and John Warner, both of Wilmington, DE and Marian Warner Trotter of Charlottesville, VA; and her grandchildren, Michael, Celine, Benjamin and Jonathan. Funeral services will be at 11:00 AM Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at Old Wye Church, 14114 Old Wye Mills Road, Wye Mills, MD. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Academy of Arts in Easton, 106 South St., Easton, MD 21601, the Queen Anne''s County Art Association, 206 S. Commerce St., Centreville, MD 21617 or the Delaware Arts Center, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, DE 19806.