Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Newell Wyeth ( born July 12, 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, † January 16, 2009 ) was an American realist painter, one of the most famous of the 20th century. He is sometimes referred to as the " People's Artist ", because he is so popular in the United States. His favorite subjects were the land and inhabitants around his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine. His most famous work, and one of the most famous of American Art of the Twentieth Century, is " Christina's World ," which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Childhood and early career

Andrew Wyeth was the son of NC Wyeth, a famous American illustrator and artist. As the youngest of five children, he was taught at home and learned the art from his father. When he was twenty years of age in 1937, he had his first solo exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City. The whole show was sold out, and Wyeth's career had begun. In 1940 he married Betsy Merle James, whom he had met a year earlier in Maine. Betsy introduced him to Cristina Olson, who later became the model for his painting " Christina's World ". Christina, her brother Alvaro and her weathered house were more than twenty years important motifs of his art. Betsy James Wyeth played in her husband's career a leading role and has always been very supportive of him.

Death of Vaters/1940er-Jahre

1945 were killed when their car stopped near her house on the tracks and was hit by a train Andrew Wyeth's father and his three year old nephew. Wyeth always said that this event was not only a personal tragedy, but also a major influence on his artistic career. Shortly after reaching his art its mature and enduring style for a muted color palette, a realistic representation and the use of emotionally charged symbolic objects was typical. 1948 Wyeth painting Anna and Karl Kuerner who were their neighbors in Chadds Ford. In addition to Olson in Maine the Kuerners and their farm for the next thirty years one of its most important motives were.

Later career

While he spent his time partly in Maine and partly in Pennsylvania, Wyeth has over fifty years maintained a fairly consistent realistic style. He put his focus on a few landscapes and models recognize again and again in his pictures, and to which he returned again and again over the decades.

Usually, he produced dozens of studies with pencil or watercolor, and then to paint the actual image, sometimes as watercolor, sometimes in a kind of dry painting with water colors or tempera. With its growing fame, his works will always achieve higher prices last he got from private collectors and at auctions over a million dollars per picture.

Reactions to criticism

His style has long been controversial. Its realistic style of painting made ​​a great contrast to the abstraction that was common in the United States from the mid-twentieth century. Museum exhibitions of his works found great popularity, but many art critics rejected his style. The most common complaint was that his paintings were in fact Illustrations, and that he was working for sentimental people and landscapes that are close to his heart. Admirer of his work believe that they radiate in addition to the beauty of his subjects also strong feelings are very symbolhaltig and have an underlying abstraction. Most viewers of his works believe that he had used water color and tempera with great artistry. Wyeth had avoided after initial experiments to use traditional oil paints.

The " Helga " pictures

A controversial episode in his career surrounded a series of works that Wyeth painted Helga Testorf, a model he met through the Kuerner family in Chadds Ford. Wyeth began in 1971 to paint Helga, and over fifteen years she was one of his most important models. However, in contrast to his other works it had prior to the " Helga" the public images. Not even his wife Betsy was allowed to see. He showed it to her in 1985, and sold it the following year to Leonard Andrews, a private buyer. Andrews caught a lot of attention with these images, and many great museums they wanted to exhibit. The media brought the story of Wyeth's secret pictures, subliminally implying that he had had an affair with the model. After the exhibitions Andrews sold the images with great profit to an anonymous Japanese industrialists. Some museum directors felt that they had been used to sell the pictures better. Some art critics thought the story of the secret hiding place for a photo staging. Others simply admired the pictures. After being sold to the industrialist, the images were often exhibited in museums in the U.S. and Japan. In December 2005, she then bought a U.S. citizen, they will probably continue to sell individually.

Museum Collections

The pictures of Andrew Wyeth are 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; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the White House. Especially many pictures of Wyeth own the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Fort, Pennsylvania, the Farnsworth Museum of Art in Rockland, Maine, and the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina.

Prizes and awards

Wyeth has received many awards, including 1963 as the first painter the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was introduced by John F. Kennedy again. In 1977, he was the first artist since John Singer Sargent, who was elected to the French Académie des Beaux -Arts. 1980 Wyeth was the first living American artist to be elected to Britain's Royal Academy Honorary Member ( Hon.RA ). In 1987 he got a D.F.A. from Bates College. 1990 gave President George HW Bush to him the golden Congressional Medal of Honor.

Exhibitions

• 2011/2012: Andrew Wyeth in Perspective, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California, USA