Wyeth, Andrew Newell
Wyeth, Andrew Newell
(wī`əth), 1917–2009, American painter, b. Chadds Ford, Pa. Wyeth's work has been enormously popular, critically acclaimed, and sometimes severely criticized since his first one-man show in 1937. He was trained by his father, the noted illustrator N. C. WyethWyeth, N. C.(Newell Convers Wyeth), 1882–1945, American painter and illustrator, b. Needham, Mass., studied with Howard Pyle. Among his many well-known murals are those in the Missouri state capitol and the altar panels for the National Episcopal Cathedral, Washington, D.
..... Click the link for more information. , but he rejected the action-filled storytelling work of his father in favor of a quieter range of subjects and treatments. The rustic places and ordinary people of Chadds Ford and Cushing, Maine, were his principal subjects. They are portrayed in a meticulous, naturalistic style, often in watercolor or in the matte textures made possible by the use of egg tempera, in a somber palette where browns and grays predominate, and in moods frequently tinged with melancholy. The best-known of Wyeth's paintings, the bleak and iconic Christina's World (1948), is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. His "Helga" pictures, a large group of intimate portraits of a neighbor, painted over many years, were first shown publicly in 1986. His son, Jamie Wyeth (James Browning Wyeth), 1946–, b. Wilmington, Del., also is a well-known realist artist. The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford has an outstanding collection of the works of all three generations of Wyeths.
Bibliography
See R. Meryman, Andrew Wyeth: A Spoken Self-Portrait (2013); his autobiography (1995); biographies by R. Meryman (1968 and 1996); G. Logsdon, Wyeth People (1971); W. M. Corn, ed., The Art of Andrew Wyeth (1973); B. J. Wyeth, Wyeth at Kuerners (1976) and Christina's World (1982); J. H. Duff, An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art (1987); J. Wilmerding, Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures (1987); A. Knutson et al., Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic (2005); D. Cateforis, Rethinking Andrew Wyeth (2014).
Wyeth, Andrew Newell
Born July 12, 1917, in Chadds Ford, Pa. American artist. Honorary member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1978).
Wyeth, who studied primarily under his father, the illustrator N. C. Wyeth, is a leading representative of American realist painting of the mid-20th century. Working in the medium of tempera, Wyeth chooses the natural setting of Chadds Ford in which to paint his figures. With great attention to detail, he depicts not only the human features of his figures but also the common objects of life found on the earth, as well as other, everyday objects, in all of which he discerns the effects mercilessly wrought by time. Wyeth’s paintings, the most famous of which is Christina’s World (1948, Museum of Modern Art, New York), are marked by a precision of composition and restrained emotional coloring. The artist, who arranges his images in such a way as to achieve a desired mood, invests all his works with profound humanism.