Artist Research - Andrew Wyeth

I want to look at a true variety of artists for this project, just because I have quite set ideas of what I want to do and where I’m heading doesn't mean I won't explore a variety of mediums and artists. One of my favourite artists is Andrew Wyeth, although I’m not big into painting I really appreciate the dark undertones and haunting beauty of Wyeth’s work. Andrew Wyeth was an American visual artist who mostly created realist painted works in the regionalist style. He was one of the most well-known American artist of the twentieth century but has rather been overshadowed by the likes of Pollock, Hopper and Warhol, Like Hopper he painted the scenes around him in Maine and Pennsylvania. I was tempted to talk about Wyeth when I explored the question Particular places because so much of his work is images of his local area however I wanted to save him to use later in my project because him and his work deserved more explanation and discussion. His best known work Christina’s World seems whimsical at first you could almost see it as romantic scene of a young reaching out to her lost love over a sea of grassland; the truth of the matter is actually the depicted woman suffers from polio and is trying to drag herself home. The painting was inspired by Wyeth seeing a women named Christina Olson crawling on the ground suffering from polio which had led to her being paralyzed from the waist down. Most artists can be referred to comfortably by their second names however in the case of Andrew Wyeth I am remiss to do so because both his father and son were also notable artists, His son James paints everything from pumpkins to presidents and his father N.C. is just as talented and diverse.

“To me, pencil drawing is a very emotional, very quick, very abrupt medium... I will perhaps put in a terrific black and press down on the pencil so strongly that the lead will break, in order to emphasize my emotional impact with the object. . . . Pencil is sort of like fencing or shooting. Yet sometimes my hand, almost my fingertips, begins to shiver when I start.”

The link to Relationships in Wyeth’s work is obsession with German born musician, baker, caregiver, and family friend Helga Testorf. He painted Helga 247 times in his life and kept all of this works secret from his family and Helga’s husband, many of the portraits where full or partial nudes and when the work was discovered after his passing the was a scandal and much suggestion he had been having an illicit affair with Helga. She is nearly always painted as unsmiling and calm, she was not a model but a nurse however with time she settled into being a model, with tiny facial touches Wyeth portrays different elements of her character and mood. This extensive study of a single model in various poses and contexts is almost unique amongst artists. The series of work was not critically acclaimed and rumours of scandal died out, Wyeth’s wife was very excepting of the circumstances and she even received a painting of Helga as a present. The strange in depth yet platonic relationship between Wyeth and Helga is an example of the kind of strange but functional relationships which I hope to explore in this project.

“To me, pencil drawing is a very emotional, very quick, very abrupt medium... I will perhaps put in a terrific black and press down on the pencil so strongly that the lead will break, in order to emphasize my emotional impact with the object. . . . Pencil is sort of like fencing or shooting. Yet sometimes my hand, almost my fingertips, begins to shiver when I start.”

Wyeth is a pure artist and creates art almost entirely for himself and believes in art for art's sake. This philosophy is one I can utterly relate to, my own reasons for creating art is because I use it as therapy and because it make me happy, whether others like it isn't massively important to me, the fact a lot of people do is just a happy coincidence. Much of Wyeth’s work is based on scenes he accidentally witnesses, he certainly sticks to the theory if you wait in the same place long enough all of life will pass you by. He isn't an obvious choice for a project about relationships but his exploration of human nature and his exquisite depiction of emotion shows a relationship between his models and his surroundings.