After her parents died, Amy Wyeth found a poster tube stuffed in the back of her bedroom closet at her family's South Street home. Inside: 52 drawings by artist N.C. Wyeth and his son Andrew Wyeth. "Nobody knew they even existed," she said.

That discovery is now part of a much bigger story: a $125,000 oil painting of the Charles River, donated by Amy and her brother John Wyeth, will join the Needham Free Public Library's Wyeth Room this November — alongside 14 more works the siblings sold to the library for $84,800. Together, it's the largest acquisition the Library Foundation of Needham has ever authorized, according to the Needham Observer.

The painting that hung over their childhood fireplace.

The centerpiece is N.C. Wyeth's 1922 painting "The Charles River in Fall," a 32-by-40-inch oil that once hung above the fireplace at the Wyeth family home, as previously reported. It had spent more than two decades on loan to a Pennsylvania museum, rarely displayed. "This is a significant acquisition that we wouldn't have been able to have handled through the town budget process," Library Director Rob MacLean said.

Early sketches from before he was famous.

The library also purchased 13 unframed drawings and one watercolor, all created before N.C. Wyeth turned 21 — an early self-portrait, kids sledding, sketches of horses. One drawing, "Election Night in the Country," appears to actually depict Needham itself, with sledding scenes reminiscent of Needham High. Library Foundation President Kathy D'Addesio called it the foundation's largest purchase ever, though a separate library wifi upgrade still cost more.

What happens to the mystery drawings now.

The 52 drawings Amy found in that poster tube — undated, but believed to date from N.C. Wyeth's early years before he became a professional artist — will be archived at the library for scholarly research rather than displayed permanently. The purchased drawings will follow a similar path, brought out occasionally for temporary exhibits or study by art historians. The donated oil painting, though, gets a permanent home, hanging in the Wyeth Room beside a 1912 painting donated in 1969 by N.C. Wyeth's wife — a pairing MacLean called "the perfect companion piece."

A family that's been woven into this library for generations.

The Wyeths' ties to the library run deep: their father worked there as a librarian, their mother served as a board member and treasurer for the Friends of the Needham Public Library, and John Jr. worked as a library page in his youth. Both parents and grandparents donated Wyeth art to the collection before them. Library trustee Kay Cahill, who lives on an adjoining South Street property and helped facilitate the donation, said the painting captures a view she still sees from her own back window.

See it for yourself.

The full collection gets its community unveiling Saturday, Nov. 21, at the library's Highland Avenue location — free and open to the public. Library Director MacLean noted 2026 has been a remarkable year for the library overall, between this acquisition, an unexpected $541,000 estate donation, and the opening of a new teen room.