Andrew Wyeth

About

The youngest of N.C. Wyeth and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth’s five children, Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) is the most acclaimed artist in the family and has been recognized internationally as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. Andrew began painting at a very young age and for more than seven decades painted the regions of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where he was born, and mid-coast Maine, where he spent most of his summer months.

Andrew was privately tutored and never attended public school. N.C. felt that the years most children spent in school were the most critical time for an artist to perfect his craft and to absorb and learn to “see” as an artist. The Wyeth household was a lively place with much intellectual and social stimulation. Because of the prominence of N.C. Wyeth, persons including many dignitaries came from all over the country to visit the family. Andrew’s sisters Carolyn and Henriette became noted artists, as did his brother-in-law, Peter Hurd. N.C.’s only child to not involve himself in art, Nathaniel Wyeth, achieved much success as a chemist for DuPont where, among many inventions, he created a durable plastic that allowed plastic bottles to hold carbonated beverages.

The essence of Andrew Wyeth’s art is best expressed in his own words,

“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it … I always want to see the third dimension of something … I want to come alive with the object.”

At age fifteen he began several years of intensive artistic training under his father, who encouraged Andrew to work as both an illustrator and painter. His career as a watercolorist was launched in 1937, when the artist’s first one-man show at Macbeth Gallery in New York drew critical acclaim. In addition to achievements in watercolor, Andrew Wyeth became a master of egg tempera, a medium introduced to him in 1936 by his brother-in-law, artist Peter Hurd. Egg tempera is an ancient painting method that blends dry pigments with egg yolk and distilled water. In contrast to the spontaneity and translucency of watercolor, tempera is a time-consuming process of mixing and painting in layers that yields opaque, lustrous color and richly varied surfaces.

As Andrew Wyeth grew more and more talented in the mediums, he began to fall in love with the scenes of the rural landscapes in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. His unique style started to take root as he launched his lifelong art career, but it wasn’t until his father’s death in 1945 that Wyeth’s art consolidated into his mature and enduring style.

Wyeth was an astute observer who once noted that meaning “is hiding behind the mask of truth” in his work. He freely manipulated his subjects, transforming them in order to evoke memories, ideas, and emotions. Through a process of reduction and selection, he created mysterious undercurrents in his landscapes, interiors, and portraits. He maintained a style strongly oriented towards Realism when Abstract Expressionism was all-prevalent. However, his paintings have elements of abstraction in that the work derives from his strong feelings about his subjects, which often appear in unusual positions, juxtapositions, and with features highlighted for emotional effect. His work usually suggests rural quiet, isolation, and somber mood, and is devoid of modern-day objects such as automobiles.

Through the years Andrew Wyeth has painted some of America’s greatest pieces including the renowned Christina’s World, which now hangs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Wyeth has received many official honors. In 1963, he was the subject of a cover story for Time Magazine and, thanks to President John F. Kennedy, he became the first visual artist to be nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1990, Wyeth received the Congressional Gold Medal, the first artist to have that honor.

“One’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes.” –Andrew Wyeth

Exhibitions with Somerville Manning Gallery

2022         American Masters: Art of the 19th – 21st Centuries

2021         PAST | PRESENT | FUTURE

2020         American Masters: Art of the 20th – 21st Centuries

2018         Wyeth to Warhol: Modern Masters From Past and Present

2017         Andrew Wyeth

2017         American Masters: Art of the 19th – 21st Centuries

2016         American and European Masters: Art of the 19th – 21st Centuries

2014         American and European Masters: Art of the 19th – 21st Centuries

2013         American Masters: Art of the 19th – 21st Centuries

2012         American Masters: Art of the 19th – 21st Centuries

2011         Equus

2011         American and European Masters: Art of the 19th – 20th Centuries

2010         American Masters: Art of the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries

2006         Andrew Wyeth – Work from Six Decades

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