American artist Andrew Wyeth is one of the most popular American painters. His paintings are realistic and at the same time mysterious. They are magically attractive, although the heroes and plots of his works are ordinary people, neighbors and their way of life. The landscapes are distinguished not by their beauty, but rather by their routine, but also by their understatement.
Andrew Newell Wyeth was born on July 12, 1917 in the US state of Pennsylvania and died there in his native Chadds Ford at the age of 92 on January 16, 2009.
Andrew Wyeth's childhood
The Wyeth ancestors emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1645. Andrew is the youngest son of Newell Converse Wyeth and his wife Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. The members of this family were incredibly gifted. Andrew's father is illustrator Newell Converse Wyeth, brother is the successful inventor Nathaniel Wyeth, sister is portrait and still life artist Henrietta Wyeth Heard, son is realist painter James (Jamie) Wyeth.
The father of the family, Newell Wyeth, was attentive to his children, encouraged their interests and contributed to the development of everyone's talents. The family was friendly, parents and children often spent time together reading or walking, they were taught a sense of closeness with nature and with the family. In the 1920s, Wyeth's father became a celebrity, and other famous people, such as the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and the actress Mary Pickford, often visited their homes.
Andrew was in fragile health, so he did not go to school. Due to the fact that he received his education at home, Andrew was almost isolated from the outside world. He recalled that his father kept him almost like a prison in his own world. The boy began to paint before he wrote. Newell introduced his son to art and artistic traditions. When his son grew up began to give him drawing lessons in his workshop. His father instilled in Andrew a love of rural landscapes and a sense of romance. As a teenager, Andrew created illustrations, like his father, although this type of creativity was not his main passion. One of the masters who admired him was the artist and graphic artist, the founder of American realistic painting, Winslow Homer.
His father helped Andrew to gain inner self-confidence, helped his son to be guided primarily by his own talent and understanding of beauty, and did not strive to ensure that his work was liked by someone and became hits. He wrote to his son that emotional depth is important and that a great picture is the one that enriches.
In October 1945, Newell Converse's father and three-year-old nephew Wyeth II were killed in a car stuck on a railroad track. For Andrew Wyeth, daring his father was not only a personal tragedy, but also influenced his creative career, the formation of his own realistic, mature and durable style, which he followed for more than 70 years of his life.
Marriage and children
In 1939, in Maine, Andrew Wyeth met the 18-year-old daughter of newspaper editor Betsy James, whom he married in 1940. The newlyweds settled in a converted school building along the road leading to Andrew's childhood home. In one of the rooms, the artist created a studio for himself. Betsy was instrumental in managing her husband's career, saying "I am a director and I had the greatest actor in the world." His wife began to compile a catalog of the artist's works, served as a model and secretary, and was engaged in sales. She helped to come up with plots and titles of paintings.
Their first child, Nicholas, was born in 1943. In 1946, James (Jamie) appeared, who followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, continuing the creative dynasty, becoming the third generation of Wyeth artists. “The only thing that our family didn’t draw was dogs,” James Wyeth jokingly said.
Creativity by Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth held his first solo exhibition of watercolors in 1937 at the Macbeth Gallery in New York from October 19 to November 1. The exhibition was so successful that the works were already sold out by October 21st. The artist was only 20 years old at that time. His painting style was different from his father's - it was more restrained and limited in color. The father was an illustrator, the son was considered a realist. Although Andrew himself attributed his work to abstractionism. He said that the objects in his paintings breathe differently and that he writes not what he sees, but what he feels.
His favorite themes of his works were life in the American countryside and nature - everything that surrounded him in his hometown of Chadds Ford in Pennsylvania, as well as in a summer home in Cushing, on the coast of Maine. He divided his time between these two places, often took walks alone and drew inspiration for his work from the landscapes that opened up. Both land and sea were close to him. Wyeth's paintings are filled with spirituality, mysterious plots and stories behind which lie unexpressed emotions. Usually, before painting, the artist would create several pencil drawings.
In 1951, Wyeth underwent lung surgery, but returned to work a few weeks later.
Christina's World
Perhaps the most famous image created by Andrew Wyeth is associated with his neighbor in Cushing, Christina Olson. In 1948 he painted Christina's World. It depicts a woman either lying or crawling across a field with dry grass. She is in an awkward tense posture, anxiously looking towards the house on the hill, her arms are excessively thin, and clumsy legs in ugly boots peep out from under a pale pink dress. This woman is Christina. She was terminally ill and could not walk, so she spent most of her time at home. But Christina tried to expand her world compressed by the disease and crawled through the fields surrounding her house. Wyeth admired Christina's fortitude and tenacity. At the time of this painting, she was about 55 years old. She died in 20 years on January 27, 1968.
Another famous work of the artist is associated with the two-story house of Christina Olson. Christina never went up to the top floor of her house. Andrew got up and the result was the painting Wind from the Sea.
The Olson House has survived, renovated and reopened to the public as part of the Farnsworth Art Museum and recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 2011. You can take a virtual walk along it. Andrew Wyeth created about 300 drawings, watercolors and tempera paintings here from 1937 to the late 1960s.
Kerner's farm
In the early 1930s, Wyeth began painting German immigrants Anna and Karl Körner, his neighbors at Chadds Ford. Like the Olsons, the Kerners and their farm were some of the most important themes in Andrew Wyeth's painting. As a teenager, he walked the hills of the Kerner farm. He soon became a close friend of Karl and Anna. For almost 50 years, Andrew has depicted their home and life in his paintings, as if documenting their lives. Karl Körner died on January 6, 1979, when he was 80 years old. Wyeth created the last portrait during his illness.
The Kerner Farm is designated a National Historic Landmark.
Helga
At the Kerner farm, Andrew Wyeth met Helga Testerf. She was born in Germany in 1933 or 1939. She married a German, US citizen John Testerf, and so ended up in America. Helga became a model for many of his paintings. Wyeth painted her from 1971 to 1985. No one has ever drawn it before. But she quickly got used to it and could pose for a long time to Wyeth, who watched her and painted carefully. Almost always, he portrayed her as passive, unsmiling, pensive, strict. However, within these deliberate constraints, Wyeth was able to convey subtle qualities of character and mood in her portraits.
Andrew wrote a whole cycle of a couple of hundred paintings depicting Helga. He hid these works for a long time. Betsy did not know about them. When the secret was revealed, the wife was shocked, but admitted that the paintings were masterfully executed. Wyeth often painted Helga naked, admiring her tirelessly. These two could walk together for a long time in the neighborhood. And even during walks, he painted her. Was it love? Andrew Wyeth did not welcome talking about love and asking questions about Helga.
In 1986, Philadelphia publisher and millionaire Leonard Andrews acquired a collection of 240 paintings for $ 6 million. A couple of years later, he sold it to a Japanese collector for an estimated $ 45 million.
In a 2007 interview, when asked if Helga would attend his 90th birthday party, Wyeth said, “Yes, of course. Oh absolutely, "and continued," She's part of the family now, it shocks everyone. This is what I really like. It really shocks them."
Helga did indeed become part of the Wyeth family, and when he became weak due to old age, she looked after him.
Death of Andrew Wyeth
On January 16, 2009, Andrew Wyeth, after a short illness, died in his sleep in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. He was 91 years old. Buried in a private cemetery in Maine. Having poor health from birth, he nevertheless lived a long life like the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.
