Paul Wescott (1904-1970) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended the Art Institute of Chicago. He continued his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was awarded the prestigious Cresson Scholarship in 1930 for travel and study in Europe. Wescott’s early landscapes were drawn from the rural environs of Chester Springs, where the academy held its summer school. When he and his wife Alison began to summer in coastal New Brunswick (1934-39), Wescott introduced marine subjects to his work. Later the Wescotts spent their summers in Maine, where they bought a house on Friendship Long Island in 1946. In 1952, Wescott left teaching and devoted himself to painting. The Wescotts continued to divide their time between their homes in Maine and West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Wescott exhibited his paintings regularly and widely, most notably at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, and the Farnsworth Art Museum. His prizes included the National Academy of Design’s Edwin Palmer Prize and Benjamin Altman Prize. Paul Wescott’s paintings are held in a number of important permanent collections including the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Butler Institute of American Art, the University of Delaware, and the Delaware Art Museum.
For additional information on this artist or for other possible examples of his works, please visit the AskArt
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(Source: With permission from AskArt.com, prior submission from William R. Talbot Fine Arts whose own references included; Pamela J. Belanger,
Maine in America: American Art at The Farnsworth Art Museum [Rockland: Farnsworth Art Museum, 1999]; Stark Whiteley,
Paul Wescott: Landscape and Marine Painter [Chadds Ford: Brandywine River Museum, 1989]).
