RIP Andrew Wyeth

Died this morning at 91.

At his peak, rivalled Rockwell in terms of popularity but all his paintings had an air of melancholy to them.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/16/arts/AP-Obit-AndrewWyeth.html?hp

 

Homer-esque, but with a starker quality that reflected his choice of surroundings.

 

"Christina's World" - arguably one of Wyeth's most iconic works ever.

 

Beautiful work, if, as JR said, melancholy. Of course, I doubt there's a more appropriate work of his to link here (his site won't allow copying) than one called "Sunday Times." Haunting.

http://www.andrewwyeth.com/AndrewWyeth7.html

 

Back in the '70s, I wrote a paper for an art history class on Wyeth's use of color and light in Christina's World. Amazing, haunting work.

 

I saw an exhibit of the Helga Portraits when I was in college.

Provocative, beautiful... I thought to myself, "Now here's a guy who gets women."

 

This would now make our greatest living artist whom? Johns?

Quite a vacuum.

 

RIP, of course.

I bought the hype on the Helga exhibit when it was in D.C. in 1987.

Hey, art and naked women – how can you lose?

But ... and this is a small squibble, Wyeth's stuff always looked better to me in the catalog or reproduced in poster form than it did close-up. It's a technique thing, I guess. Perhaps it betrays something of the way he learned about art from his father, a noted illustrator.

I would contrast that with, say, O'Keefe's paintings, which seem to pack a punch both in reproduction and in person.

 

I remember when I would have a doctor's appointment, our family doc had a copy of this hanging in one of the examination rooms. I was an 8-year-old kid who knew jack shit about art, but even I was fascinated by that painting.