Andrew Wyeth - America's Artist
Andrew Wyeth was born on July 12, 1917 to Newell Convers Wyeth and Carolyn Brennemen (Bockius) Wyeth in the idyllic Pennsylvania Area of Chadds Ford. Chadds Ford is a farming village of South Eastern Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware. Andrew was born into a family of seven and he was the youngest of five children: his brother Nathaniel, and sisters Henriette, Carolyn, and Ann.
Newell Convers, Andrew Wyeth’s father, moved to the Wilmington, Delaware area in 1902 to study under Howard Pyle, a commercial illustrator. Newell moved here from New England when he was just a young child. He built his home and studio nearby in Chadds Ford where all of his children were born. Newell became a popular and prosperous book illustrator who did large amounts of work for the New York publisher Scribner’s. He also illustrated murals and children’s classics.
As a child, Andrew Wyeth was sickly and frail. Chronic sinus problems kept him ill and these problems impacted Wyeth’s education. Since it was obvious that Andrew was too sick to attend school, Newell made the decision to have Andrew home schooled. He hired a local woman as a tutor. Andrew Wyeth only completed three months of the first grade and country grammar school. He never mastered spelling.
Besides being tutored, Wyeth had a lot of free time on his hands. At a young age, Andrew began displaying artistic talent. He was fascinated with the period costumes and garments and stage props his father kept in his studio. By experimenting and playing with such objects, Andrew developed a great interest in theater and he created a miniature theater by hand. He presented this theater to his family when he was 15. The theater reflected and showed the players, sets and costumes for Arthur Conan Doyle’s romance The White Company. Newell was deeply impressed and decided to help Andrew’s development as an artist. Newell Converse took Andrew as his apprentice and student.
In Andrew’s development, he started his studies by learning how to use pen, paint, ink, and brush. He also learned how to do light and shadow by using cones and spheres. Later, Andrew began to also master plaster casts and still lives. Newell did a good job encouraging Andrew, but he was also conscientious as to not impose his ideas on Andrew. One thing that Newell taught Andrew which helped benefit Andrew’s artwork was the technique of projecting himself into whatever subject matter he was painting. When Andrew did this, his artwork became almost poetic. Andrew became a good learner, and his abilities progressed quickly.
When Andrew was ten, he began spending his summer months in Maine. He first started staying in Needham, then later in Port Clyde in 1927. During his teenage years, his early invasion into watercolor paintings was all of the Maine landscape and the ocean sights.
Andrew, at 20 years of age, had his first one-man show at New York’s William Mac Beth Gallery. It was held in 1937, and Andrew displayed the watercolor paintings from Maine. All of his works sold out in the first day, causing Wyeth to feel disheartened and he was not reassured by his immediate success because he was a self-critical artist. He felt his work was facile and spontaneous. Wyeth returned to his father’s studio to pursue realism by working on the human figure. He accomplished this by sketching a skeleton from many different angles.
In 1943, the Saturday Evening Post asked Wyeth to paint occasional cover art for their magazine. It was the perfect opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he turned it down.
A tragedy sprung upon the Wyeth family. In October of 1945, while Carolyn and the kids were visiting the James Family Barn in Maine, they received word that Newell and his grandson, Nathaniel were in an accident. The family rushed home, only to find out that the two were crossing a railroad track, and the car stalled on the track. A train plowed right into the car, killing both. This marked a turning point in Andrew’s artistic career. It made him take the career more seriously.
The time after Newell Wyeth’s death was spent on the Winter of 1946. Shortly after the deaths, Wyeth visited the Railroad crossing. While he was there, he saw a boy running down the hill with a button up jacket on. Trailed behind him was a shadow, cast by the winter sun. This became the subject of the painting. The hill in the painting was the one accompanied by the railroad crossing at which Andrew’s father died. The boy represents Andrew, holding his hand out slightly: his free soul groping.
Andrew Wyeth rarely used people in his paintings. After his father’s death, Andrew used people more often as his subjects. He claimed that his father’s death gave him a reason to paint. Every time he used a person, they were depicted as being lonely, unsmiling, or reflective.
A German born Chadds Ford neighbor, Karl Kuerner, became a surrogate father to Wyeth and he was featured in one of Wyeth’s best portraits. The Kuerner’s and their farm were often reflected in Wyeth’s works. Ground Hog Day was a menacing image of a sawed log seen on the farm through the window of a sunny room.
On his 22nd Birthday, while in Maine, Andrew met a daughter of a newspaper editor, Betsy Merle James. A year later, on May 15, 1940, the couple was wed. In the summer of 1939 Betsy took Wyeth to Cushing, Maine, and introduced him to Christina Olson, a young crippled woman affected with polio since childhood. Wyeth was first interested in her three-story weatherworn house, built on coastal promontory. She gradually became Wyeth’s captivated subject. She had this awareness and sense that reminded him of Maine. He eventually ended up turning a second story room in the Olson’s house into his studio.
In 1948, Wyeth’s most well known piece of work was created, Christina’s World, which pictured Christina in a pink dress, dragging herself through a field toward her house. She continued to be the main subject in his paintings, including Christine Olson (1947), Miss Olson (1952), and Anna Christine (1967). In each one, she was pictured with her warm personality and great spirit. A year after the last painting of Christine, she died.
Wyeth received numerous awards. He was honored by President John F. Kennedy as the first artist to receive the Presidential Freedom Award in 1963. Later, in 1970, President Richard Nixon recognized Wyeth with a private exhibition and a dinner at the White House.
Andrew and Betsy Wyeth had two sons. Andrew created a tempera profile of his older son Nicholas in 1956, which was a favorite of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In Cushing, Wyeth lives in a restored eighteenth-century clapboard house. Wyeth’s home in Chadds Ford is made up of an eighteenth-century miller’s house, which is now used as a studio, and a converted granary, all of which have been restored. To this day, Wyeth is still alive. Spending his time in Cushing.
Andrew Wyeth's most notable works include:Big Room
Master Bedroom
After the Chase
Afternoon
Albert's Son
Around the Corner
Bermuda
Blue Mussels
Bradford House
Chester County Farm
Christina's World
Cider Barrel
Coot Hunter
Edge of the Field
Elwell's Sawmill
End of Olsen's
Fortune Teller
From Mt. Kearsarge
Geraniums, 1960
Ground Hog Day
Karl's Room
Life Boat Shed
Master Bedroom
Mother Archie's Church
Muskrat Traps
Nick and Jamie
Salt Marshes
Schooner Aground
Spindrift
Split Ash Basket
Spring Beauty
That Gentleman
Tolling Bell
Wash House
West Window
You'll find a broad selection from this list of Andrew Wyeth prints at ArtInaClick.com:
Andrew WyethWe have also teamed up with Art.com to bring you this great selection of over 100,000 posters, photos, and fine art prints. Please enjoy browsing these cool posters, and don't forget to check out Art.com's custom framing area! |
|
  Ides of March by Andrew Wyeth Buy this Fine-Art Poster at art.com |
 Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth Buy this Fine Art Poster at art.com |
 Easterly by Andrew Wyeth Buy this Fine-Art Poster at art.com |
 Ground Hog Day by Andrew Wyeth Buy this fine art Poster at art.com |