They miss the point someplace - the mood of the picture. Which is too bad, because most (of their paintings) are dead. In a 2000 interview, she said of her brother’s work, “God knows everybody tries to paint like Andy. She married painter John McCoy and lived in Chadds Ford. Ann went on to become an acclaimed composer and pianist, as well as a watercolor artist. “That’s really their contribution to the century.”įor many years, Andrew and his sister Ann were the only remaining family members who had experienced life in the creative hothouse of the Wyeth home. … As a group of painters, they have restored place and nature to the center of the artist’s life,” Michaelis said. “Andrew Wyeth has managed to stay fresh and original. In the studio situated above the family’s brick home on a hill in Chadds Ford, Andrew learned the basics of drawing and painting under the stern but loving instruction of his father.

They show his intense involvement with his portrait subjects, but also his clinical, unforgiving eye.Įducated at home in the early 1920s, Wyeth studied with his father, N.C. Far more than pretty landscapes and portraits, his works express both his love of nature and his awe of its power. His works are not so much about what we see, but what we don’t see.įor those who know how to read the works, their air of quiet menace, solitude and wildness are unforgettable. His beautiful tempera surfaces, the microscopic detail in his pencil sketches, the drama of his watercolors - all hint at something just out of reach. His works are not easily understood, although they are often easy to appreciate. Some critics called Wyeth’s art superficial, but they didn’t know the depth of emotion behind every brushstroke. The trees, flowers and streams of Chadds Ford were depicted again and again, but always with a mysterious shadow over them. He worked fiercely, continually, always with a sketchbook in his hands. Spending a lifetime walking the roads and fields of Chadds Ford and the coastline of Maine, he created a world that can only be called “Wyeth-esque.”

In those intervening 91 years, he produced a body of work unique in the history of art. Andrew Wyeth came into the world in 1917, in the home of his parents in Chadds Ford.

Andy wyeth