Andrew Wyeth (1917 – 2009)
Cover: Andrew Wyeth, Maine, October 2009
Andrew Wyeth
There is probably no artist of the second half of the twentieth century in America more admired, discussed, and honored than Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009). A painter primarily in tempera and watercolor, often using drybrush, as well as a draftsman of singular ability, Wyeth stood for the championing of traditional values of recognizable imagery and space in the face of the myriad of changing, more “Modern” aesthetics in America, from Abstract Expressionism to Op, and Pop, Minimalism, Video Art, and Installation Art. In 1963, he was the first artist to receive the Presidential Freedom Award under President John F. Kennedy. In 1977, he was the first American since John Singer Sargent to be elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts; in 1980, the first living American artist to be elected to Great Britain’s Royal Academy; in 1988, he received the Congressional Gold Medal; and in 2007, he was the recipient of the National Medal of Honor. Wyeth is represented in museum collections throughout the United States, and internationally in Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Milan, and Paris.
Wyeth has won countless admirers for his brilliant artistic achievement, based in part on this respect for the traditions in art that go back to the early Flemish Masters and to Albrecht Durer in Renaissance Germany, as well as to the near-contemporary painting of the American Edward Hopper. Wyeth is a realist, but his Realism encompasses both personal and humanistic values that both reach the emotions of his viewers and at the same time engage them in a world beyond their everyday experience. This is not to suggest that Wyeth is not, in fact, deeply concerned with Abstraction. But unlike so many American and European Abstractionists, it is not the abstract relationships of the forms and colors that these artists put on canvas, nor the abstraction of their own inner feelings and emotions that Wyeth transmits to his viewers, but rather the abstract connotations inherent in those multiple signposts of realism which he has deeply probed for their meaning and which, in turn, can so successfully pass on to his viewers, heightening their emotions, expressively stimulating their reaction to the scene depicted, and leaving them with the realization that there are still ever more depths to plumb in their continued exploration of the scenes and figures portrayed.
Edward Hopper may have been one of Wyeth’s fellow twentieth-century American Realists that the artist especially admired, and there are certain similarities in their often mutual emphasis both upon sparseness and loneliness. Yet, the differences are profound. This lies not so much in the relative painterliness of Hopper’s work compared with the linearity of Wyeth’s paintings, but rather in so far that Hopper’s paintings were especially concerned with aspects of urban living, and if not that, than with rural life, while Wyeth’s paintings are often much more concerned with open and empty spaces, or with figures isolated within empty confines or broad open spaces. Wyeth’s paintings are often landscapes, or scenes kin to them, where the presence of figures are implied, though they themselves are often absent. These were usually painted in the two areas he came not only to know well, but to cherish. One was the area around his family home in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania; Andrew was the son of Newell Convers Wyeth, one of the greatest of America’s illustrators of books and magazines, and the young Andrew’s only teacher. The other was the region around Cushing, Maine, where he and his wife, Betsy James, settled in 1940. For Wyeth, the Pennsylvania countryside meant solid stone walls and soggy, rich earth; Maine appealed for its simplicity that was elsewhere disappearing in this country.
Selected Andrew Wyeth Exhibitions
Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford PA, June 24 – September 17, 2017.
Seattle Museum of Art, Seattle WA, October 19, 2017 – January 15, 2018.
Andrew Wyeth at 100
Dr. Syn, March 25, 2017 – September 10, 2017.
Maine Drawings, March 18, 2017 – March 4, 2018.
Maine Watercolors, April 15 – December 31, 2017.
Her Room, September 15, 2017 – March 20, 2018 .
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland ME
Andrew Wyeth at 100: A Family Remembrance
Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown NY, May 27 – September 4, 2017.
Wyeth Dynasty
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville SC, November 16, 2016 – September 10, 2017.
Wyeth: Andrew and Jamie in the Studio
Denver Art Museum, Denver CO, November 8, 2014 – February 7, 2016.
Museo yssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain, March 1 – June 19, 2016.
Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, May 4 – November 30, 2014.
Andrew Wyeth In China
Yuan Space, Beijing April 14 – May 12; Hong Kong Exhibition Center, Hong Kong May 24 – 28; Christie’s, New York City September 4 – 25th, 2012.
Andrew Wyeth: A Story of the Olson House
Miyagi Museum of Art in Sendai, Japan May 26 – July 25, 2012.
Andrew Wyeth: Looking Beyond
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Connecticut March 24 – July 22, 2012.
e Wyeths: ree Generations of American Art
Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris November 10, 2011 – February 12, 2012.
Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World and the Olson House
Farnsworth Museum of Art, Rockland Maine June 11 – October 30, 2011.
Andrew Wyeth: Akvareller fran the Marunuma Art Park Collection
Nordiska Akvarvellmuseet, Skarhamn Sweden May 14 – September 5, 2010.
Andrew Wyeth: Emotion and Creation
Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo Japan November 8 – December 23, 2008; Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya Japan January 4 – March 8, 2009; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima Japan March 17 – May 10, 2009.
Andrew Wyeth: Remembrance
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Washington June 25 – October 18, 2009.
Andrew Wyeth: Master Drawings from the Artist’s Collection
Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford Pennsylvania March 11 – July 15, 2006.
Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic
High Museum of American Art, Atlanta November 12 – February 26, 2006; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania March 29 – July 16, 2006.
Andrew Wyeth: Early Watercolors
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester New Hampshire October 8, 2004 – January 10, 2005; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine April 6 – September 18, 2005; Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania October 1 –November 20, 2005.
Andrew Wyeth: Close Friends
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson Mississippi February 3 – May 13, 2001; Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville South Carolina June 6 – August 26, 2001; Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah Georgia September 13 –December 31, 2001.
Andrew Wyeth: Watercolors and Drawings
Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima-City, Japan February 23 – April 8, 2000; Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Hiratsuka-City, Japan October 14 – November 26, 2000; Museum of Fine Art, Gifu-City, Japan December 15, 2000 –February 12, 2001.
Andrew Wyeth: Her Room
Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston Maine November 3, 2000 – March 30, 2001.
Wondrous Strange – e Wyeth Tradition – Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, James Wyeth
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland Maine June 21 – November 8, 1998; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington Delaware December 10, 1998 – February 21, 1999.
Unknown Terrain: Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York May 28 – August 30, 1998; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg Russia October 18, 1998 – January 10, 1999.
Andrew Wyeth – America’s Painter
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville South Carolina June 18 – September 15; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Maryland September 25, 1996 – February 16, 1997.
Andrew Wyeth – Autobiography
Aichi Prefectural Museum, Nagoya, Japan February 3 – April 2, 1995; Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan April 15 –June 4, 1995; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima-City, Japan June 6 – July 16, 1995; Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri September 24 – November 26, 1995.
Andrew Wyeth
Gallerie Forni, Bologna, Italy March 28 – April 28, 1992.
Andrew Wyeth: e Helga Pictures
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC May 24 – September 27; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston October 28, 1987 –January 3, 1988; e Museum of Fine Arts Houston January 31 – April 4, 1988; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco August 13 – October 16, 1988; Detroit Institute of Arts November 13, 1988 – January 22, 1989; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York June 19 – September 18, 1989.
An American Vision: ree Generations of Wyeth Art Academy of the Arts of the U.S.S.R., Leningrad March 11 – April 12, 1987; Academy of the Arts of the U.S.S.R., Moscow April 24 – May 31, 1987; Corcoran Gallery of Art Washington DC July 4 – August 3, 1987; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Texas September 29 – November 29, 1987; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago Illinois December 13, 1987 – February 14, 1988; Setagaya, Tokyo March 10 – April 21, 1988; Palazzo Reale, Milan Italy May 17 – June 20, 1988; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge England July 12 – August 29, 1988; Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford Pennsylvania September 17 – November 22, 1988.
Andrew Wyeth – A Trojan Horse Modernist
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville South Carolina March 9 – April 15, 1984.
Andrew Wyeth
Royal Academy of the Arts, London June 6 – August 31, 1980.
Andrew Wyeth – Temperas, Aquarelles, Drybrush, Dessins
Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris December 2, 1980 – January 31, 1981.
Works by Andrew Wyeth from the Holly and Arthur Magill Collection
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville South Carolina opening September 11, 1979.
Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth: Kuerners and Olsons
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York October 16, 1976 – February 6, 1977.
Brandywine Heritage ’74 – Pyle, Wyeth, Wyeth, Wyeth
Museum of Art, Science & Industry, Bridgeport Connecticut April 20 – May 23, 1974.
Andrew Wyeth
e Lefevre Gallery, London May 23 – June 22, 1974.
Andrew Wyeth
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo April 6 – May 19; e Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Kyoto, Japan May 25 – June 30, 1974.
e Art of Andrew Wyeth
e Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco California June 16 – September 3, 1973.
Andrew Wyeth
e White House, Washington DC February 19 – March 28, 1970.
Andrew Wyeth
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston July 17 – September 6, 1970.
Andrew Wyeth – Temperas, Watercolors, Dry Brush, Drawings, 1938 – 1966
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia October 5 – November 27, 1966; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Maryland December 11, 1966 – January 22, 1967; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City February 6 – April 12 1967; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Illinois April 21 – June 4, 1967.
Andrew Wyeth – Dry Brush and Pencil Drawings
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge Massachusetts January 15 – February 28, 1963; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York March 14 – April 27, 1963; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC May 19 – June 16, 1963.
Andrew Wyeth, Temperas, Water Colors and Drawings
Bu alo Fine Arts Academy, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Bu alo New York November 2 – December 9, 1962.
American Watercolor Exhibition
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo August – September, 1956.
Andrew Wyeth
M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco California July 12 – August 12, 1956; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara California August 28 – September 23, 1956.
Andrew Wyeth
M.Knoedler & Company, Inc., New York October 26 – November 14, 1953.
Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth
Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH July 7 – August 4, 1951; William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum Rockland, ME August 10 – September 8, 1951.
Symbolic Realism in American Painting: 1940 – 1950
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London July 18 – August 18, 1950.
Paintings by Maine Artists
William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland Maine October 12 – 30, 1950.
Andrew Wyeth
Pennsylvania Academy of Art, Philadelphia April 8 – 20, 1947.
Americans 1943: American Realists and Magic Realists
Museum of Modern Art, New York February 10 – March 21, 1943; Albright-Knox Gallery, Bu alo New York April 4 – May 5, 1943; Minneapolis Museum of Art, Minneapolis Minnesota June 1 – 30, 1943; San Francisco Museum of Art, California
August 23 – September 19, 1943; Toronto Art Gallery, Canada November 12 – December 19, 1943; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio January 6 – February 6, 1944.
Watercolors by Andrew Wyeth
Currier Museum of American Art, Manchester New Hampshire April 1939 (specific dates unknown).
Drawings and Lithographs of Peter Hurd and Watercolors and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC December 2 – 22, 1939.
Water Colors by Andrew Wyeth
Macbeth Gallery, New York October 19 – November 1, 1937.
Work by the Wyeth Family
Philadelphia Art Alliance, Pennsylvania March 25 – April 19, 1935.
Nineteenth Annual Exhibition – Delaware Artists, Pupils of Howard Pyle, Members of the Society
e Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, Wilmington DE November 7 – 27, 1932