| Andrew Wyeth | |
| Born | July 12, 1917 Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, United States |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Realist painter |
Andrew Newell Wyeth (born July 12, 1917) is an American realist painter, also known as regional art. Events 1191 - Saladin 's garrison surrenders ending the two-year Siege of Acre. Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Chadds Ford Pennsylvania is a small township 30 miles southwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in Delaware County. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ( often colloquially referred to as PA (its abbreviation by natives and Northeasterners is a state located in the Northeastern The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Realism is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see Events 1191 - Saladin 's garrison surrenders ending the two-year Siege of Acre. Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Realism is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see See also American Scene painting, Regionalism is a realist modern American Art movement that was popular during the 1930s He is one of the best-known of the 20th century and sometimes referred to as the "Painter of the People" due to his popularity with the American public. The twentieth century of the Common Era began on He is the son of the illustrator and artist N. C. Wyeth, and the brother of inventor Nathaniel Wyeth and artist Henriette Wyeth Hurd, and the father of artist Jamie Wyeth and Nicholas Wyeth . Newell Convers Wyeth ( October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945) known as N Nathaniel C Wyeth ( October 24, 1911 — July 6, 1990) was an American mechanical engineer and Inventor. Henriette Wyeth Hurd ( October 22, 1907 &ndash April 3, 1997) was an American artist noted for portraits and Still life paintings James Browning Wyeth (1946-- is a contemporary American realist painter
Wyeth's favorite subject is the land and inhabitants around his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and those near his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Chadds Ford Pennsylvania is a small township 30 miles southwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in Delaware County. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ( often colloquially referred to as PA (its abbreviation by natives and Northeasterners is a state located in the Northeastern Cushing is a town in Knox County, Maine, United States. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 1322 The State of Maine ( is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean One of the most well-known images in 20th century American art, is Christina's World (1948), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Christina's World is the most famous work by American painter Andrew Wyeth, and one of the best-known American paintings of the 20th century The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street between Fifth The City of New York
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Childhood/ Early career
Andrew was the youngest of the five children of N. C. and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. He was home-tutored because of his frail health, and learned art from his father during long periods together. Both shared the same love for rural landscape, a sense of romance, and a strongly held feeling for Wyeth family history dating back to 1645 in America. [1] Andrew started drawing at a very young age, and with his father’s patient and skillful guidance, he mastered figure study and early took to watercolor, and later learned egg tempera from brother-in-law Peter Hurd. Peter Hurd ( February 22, 1904 - July 9, 1984) was an American artist born Harold Hurd Jr He studied art history on his own, admiring many masters of Renaissance and American painting, especially Winslow Homer. Winslow Homer ( February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American Landscape painter and Printmaker [2] Like his father, he read and appreciated the poetry of Frost and Thoreau and studied their relationship with nature. Music and movies also heightened his artistic sensitivity.
In 1937 at age twenty, he had his first one-man exhibition of watercolors at Macbeth Gallery in New York City. Year 1937 ( MCMXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The City of New York The entire inventory of paintings quickly sold out, and Wyeth's career was launched. His style was distinctly different from his father’s—more spare, more ”dry”, and more limited in color range. He also avoided the drama of his father’s style and early on stated the belief that “the great danger of the Pyle school is picture-making. ” [3]He went on to do a little illustration in his early career but avoiding the yoke that had been held back N. C. Wyeth’s artistic freedom, Andrew charted his own direction.
Father's death 1940s
In 1940, Wyeth married Betsy James and in 1943 the Wyeths had their first child Nicholas, followed by James ("Jamie") three years later. Andrew painted well-known portraits of both Jamie and Betsy. In October 1945, Andrew Wyeth's father and his three-year-old nephew, Newell Convers Wyeth II (b. 1941), were killed when their car stalled on railroad tracks near their home and was struck by a train. Wyeth has referred to his father's death as a formative emotional event in his artistic career, in addition to a personal tragedy. [4] It was shortly after this time that Wyeth's art consolidated into his mature and enduring style, characterized by a subdued color palette, highly realistic renderings, and the depiction of emotionally charged symbolic objects.
In 1948 Wyeth began painting Anna and Karl Kuerner, neighbors of the Wyeths in Chadds Ford. It was at the Olsen farm in 1948 that he painted Christina’s World, his famous image of crippled Christina Olsen yearning for her home. Like the Olsons in Maine, the Kuerners and their farm became one of Wyeth's most important subjects for nearly 30 years. Ironically, the Kuerner's farm is just a few yards from the railroad tracks where N. C. Wyeth died. The Kuerner's farm is now available to tour through the Brandywine River Museum as is the N. C. Wyeth home and studio.
Wyeth stated about the Kuerner Farm, “I didn’t think it a picturesque place. It just excited me, purely abstractly and purely emotionally”. [5]
Mature career
Dividing his time between Pennsylvania and Maine, Wyeth has maintained a relatively consistent realist painting style for over fifty years. He has tended to gravitate to several identifiable landscape subjects and models, to which he would return repeatedly over a period of decades. In 1958, Andrew and Betsy Wyeth purchased and restored “The Mill”, a group of 18th century buildings which appeared often in his work, including Night Sleeper (1979). His solitary walks are the primary means of inspiration for his landscapes. He develops an extraordinary intimacy with the land and sea and strives for a spiritual understanding based on history and unspoken emotion. He typically creates dozens of studies on a subject in pencil or loosely brushed watercolor before executing a finished painting, either in watercolor, drybrush (a watercolor style in which the water is squeezed from the brush), or egg tempera. Drybrush is a Painting technique in which a paint brush that is relatively dry but still holds a Paint load is applied to a dry support such as Tempera (also known as egg tempera) is a type of artist's Paint and associated art techniques that were known from the classical world where it appears
When Christina Olsen died in the winter of 1969, Wyeth refocused his artistic attention upon Siri Erickson, capturing her naked innocence in Indian Summer (1970). It was a prelude to the Helga paintings.
Helga pictures
In 1986, extensive coverage was given to the revelation of a series of 247 studies of Wyeth's neighbour, the Prussian-born Helga Testorf, painted over the period 1971-1985 without the knowledge of either Wyeth's wife or John Testorf, her husband. Helga is a musician, baker, and caregiver, and friend of the Wyeths. She met Wyeth when she was attending to Karl Kuerner. She had never modeled before but quickly became comfortable with the long periods of posing during which she was observed and painted in intimate detail. The Helga pictures are not an obvious psychological study of the subject but more of an extensive study of her physical landscape set within Wyeth's customary landscapes. She is nearly always unsmiling and passive, yet within those deliberate limitations, Wyeth manages to convey subtle qualities of character and mood, as he does in many of his best portraits. This extensive study of one subject studied in differing contexts and emotional states is unique in American art. [6]
In 1986, millionaire Leonard E. B. Andrews purchased the entire collection, preserving it intact.
The works were exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in 1987, and in a coast-to-coast tour. This article is about the National Gallery of the United States for other National Galleries see National Gallery. [7]The Helga works are now owned by a private Japanese interest, which has agreed to allow additional exhibitions. In March 2002, Wyeth painted Gone, his last Helga picture, and it joined the collection on recent tours between 2002-2006.
Critical reaction
Wyeth's art has long been controversial. As a representational artist, Wyeth's paintings have sharply contrasted with the prevailing trend of abstraction that gained currency in American art in the middle of the 20th century. Representation describes the signs that stand in for and take the place of something else Abstract art uses a Visual language of form color and line to create a composition which exists independently of visual references to the world
Museum exhibitions of Wyeth's paintings have set attendance records, but many art critics have been heavily critical of his work. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The Village Voice, derided his paintings as "Formulaic stuff not very effective even as illustrational 'realism'". Peter Schjeldahl was born in 1942 in Fargo, North Dakota. He grew up in small towns throughout Minnesota, and attended Carleton College This article is about a New York newspaper For the Ottawa Hills Ohio magazine see The Village Voice of Ottawa Hills. [8] Hence the most common criticisms are that Wyeth's art verges on illustration, and that his predominantly rural subject matter is heavily weighted with sentiment.
Admirers of Wyeth's art believe that his paintings, in addition to sometimes displaying overt beauty, contain strong emotional currents, symbolic content, and underlying abstraction. Most observers of Wyeth's art agree that he is exceptionally skilled at handling the mediums of watercolor and egg tempera (which uses egg yolk as a medium). Except for early experimentations, Wyeth has avoided using traditional oil paints. His masterful control of understated color and foreboding shadow lets the simplest subjects illuminate the canvas. Wyeth is acutely observant of sound and there is often a stillness in his art as if he is stopping to listen to the most delicate sounds—water dripping, quiet breathing, changing weather—as is implied in many paintings including Distant Thunder (1961) and Spring Fed (1967). [9]
Museum collections
Andrew Wyeth is in the collections of most major American museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art; the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock; and the White House, in Washington, DC. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney" harbors one of the most important collections of 20th century American art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street between Fifth The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a Museum in Washington D This article is about the National Gallery of the United States for other National Galleries see National Gallery. One of the leading cultural institutions in the state the Arkansas Arts Center is located on the corner of 9th and Commerce streets in MacArthur Park Little Rock Arkansas See also Executive Office of the President of the United States The White House, formerly known as the Executive Mansion, is the Official residence Especially large collections of Wyeth's art are in the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine; and the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina. The Brandywine River Museum is an intimate art museum located on U The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland Maine, United States, offers a nationally recognized collection of American art in its elegantly appointed galleries Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. Greenville is a mid-sized city located in the upstate of South Carolina. A major retrospective of Andrew Wyeth's work occurred at the Philadelphia Museum of Art[1] from March 29, 2006 - July 16, 2006. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia 's Fairmount Park, was established in 1876
Honors and awards
Most recently, Wyeth received the 2007 National Medal of Arts. The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the Congress of the United States in 1984 for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts Wyeth has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. In 1963, Andrew Wyeth became the first painter to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was conferred by President John F. Kennedy. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is a decoration bestowed by the President of the United States and is along with the equivalent Congressional Gold Medal bestowed John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29 1917&ndashNovember 22 1963 often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of In 1977, he became the first American artist since John Singer Sargent elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. John Singer Sargent (January 12 1856 &ndash April 14 1925 was the most successful portrait painter of his era During his career he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than The Académie des Beaux-Arts (Academy of Fine Arts is a French Learned society. In 1980, Wyeth became the first living American artist to be elected to Britain's Royal Academy. This article refers to an art institution in London For other meanings of Royal Academy see Royal Academy (disambiguation. In 1987 Wyeth received a D. F. A. from Bates College. Bates College is a private liberal arts college located in Lewiston Maine, in the United States. On November 9, 1988, Wyeth was the recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States legislature. Events 694 - Egica, a king of the Visigoths of Hispania, accuses Jews of aiding Muslims sentencing all Year 1988 ( MCMLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar) Not to be confused with the Medal of Honor, sometimes called the "Congressional Medal of Honor" which is the highest military decoration of the United States
Influence on the arts
Wyeth was often referenced by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (a longtime admirer) in the comic strip Peanuts. Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26 1922 &ndash February 12 2000 was an American Cartoonist best known worldwide for his Peanuts Comic strip Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday Comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M In one strip the character Snoopy was presented with a bill for "psychiatric help" 20 cents and states "I refuse to sell my Andrew Wyeth". Snoopy is a Fictional character in the long-running Comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M In another strip, Snoopy's prized Van Gogh painting is burned in a fire, and he replaces it with an Andrew Wyeth. [10] Fred Rogers, from the PBS television series 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood', had an Andrew Wyeth painting in the entry way of the studio home, readily seen as he entered and exited.
Tom Duffield, the production designer for the American remake of The Ring, drew inspiration from Wyeth's paintings for the look of the film. The Ring is a 2002 American remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film of the same name (also known as Ringu) M. Night Shyamalan based his movie The Village on paintings by Andrew Wyeth. Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan (ˈʃaməˈlan ( Malayalam: മനോജ് നെല്ലിയട്ടു ശ്യാമളന് Tamil: மனோஜ் நெல்லியட்டு The Village is a 2004 film written and directed by M Night Shyamalan that explores the dynamics of an insular turn-of-the-20th-century Village and [11] The Village was filmed in Chadds Ford not far from Wyeth's studio. The Village is a 2004 film written and directed by M Night Shyamalan that explores the dynamics of an insular turn-of-the-20th-century Village and [12]Director Philip Ridley has stated that his 1990 film The Reflecting Skin is heavily inspired by the paintings of Andrew Wyeth in its visual style. Philip Ridley is a British Artist working with various media His work is characterised by an intriguing mix of both the menacing and the magical The Reflecting Skin is a Surreal 1990 film about a young child growing up in Rural Idaho in the 1950s
References
See also
- Jamie Wyeth - artist son of Andrew Wyeth. James Browning Wyeth (1946-- is a contemporary American realist painter
Further reading
- Meryman, R. : Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life, HarperCollins 1996. ISBN 0-06-017113-8.
- Wyeth, A. : Andrew Wyeth: Autobiography, Bulfinch Press 1995. ISBN 0-8212-2217-1.
Galleries online
- Andrew Wyeth at MuseumSyndicate
- birdsnest.com - Andrew Wyeth
- Artnet - Andrew Wyeth
- Christina's World in the MoMA Online Collection
External links
- Andrew Wyeth's website
- Brandywine River Museum
- Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center
- Smithsonian Magazine Article on Andrew Wyeth
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