Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth (1917 - 2009) was born to a wealthy Swiss/German family  in Chad's Ford, Penssylvania, and lived there until his death. Chadds Ford was a rural area which greatly influenced Wyeth's work as he would document the lanscapes as well as the people who lived there - although it is arguable that his greatest influences came from his artist father, Newell Convers Wyeth (1882 - 1945).

N.C. Wyeth, himself, was infamous for his elaborate water-colour and oil

N.C.Wyeth

illustrations for Scribner's Magazine as well as Scribner's Classics' Treasure Island which contained melodramatic images of Pirates at battle. 

 This aspect of fairy-tale heroism is something that was installed within A. Wyeth's psyche from a young age. In a recent documentary entitled 'Micheal Palin in Wyeth's World'  Palin investigated the work of A. Wyeth whose Niece, Robin McCoy, reveals that, as a child, her uncle would play in the nearby woods, re-enacting the tales of his father's paintings - "It was always what pa said what pa did ... He created this world for us all". So it becomes apparent that A. Wyeth was heavily influenced by his father in many aspects. 

Also, due to suffering from a number of illnesses as a child, A. Wyeth was home schooled by his father because he was deemed too fragile to attend a conventional school. This factor made it inevitable for the young Wyeth to be heavily influenced by his father's artistic style - perhaps at a subconscious level. Micheal Palin comments "He wanted his son to be free, both artistically and personally".

Wyeth's Work

In 1937 A. Wyeth held his first exhibition at New York's Macbeth gallery, and sold out. Because of his father's tremendous impact on him, Wyeth's success was as much a victory for his father as it was for himself however the artist longed to escape the shadow cast by his father's success.

This attempt at escaping is evident within Wyeth's style as he decided to work as a fine artist as opposed to a commercial artist. Also, Wyeth's technique differs largely to that of his contemporaries as he often enjoyed painting with a medium known as egg tempara which requires mixing egg yolk with pigment and water.

Andrew Wyeth: Early Self Portrait 
(1938)

Brian Baade, conservator at the Brandy-Wine Museum, explains that the medium pre-dates the renaissance and was dominant in Europe from the middle ages up to the 1500s. This somewhat caused the young Wyeth to become an outsider of the art world especially during the 1940s as the artistic Zeitgeist lent towards Abstract Expressionism - as Joyce Stoner, conservator at the Brandywine River Museum, mentions "Andrew was fascinated with outsiders".

Newell Convers Wyeth: Self Portrait With Pipe
Circa (1915-1920)

In this early self portrait (above), A. Wyeth used egg tempara and it is evident that this medium is effective in depicting colour and light, whereas oils can sometimes appear rigid and somewhat 'dark' - especially with the passage of time. You can see this when comparing the painting with N.C. Wyeth's self portrait (right).

On a less superficial level, A. Wyeth's self-portrait has a mischevious quality about it. Although, at a glance, it emits a sense of seriousness, the painting portrays A. Wyeth in a sarcastic light. It almost appears to be a feigned, or mocking, seriousness. It becomes apparent, too, that the lightness of A. Wyeth's skin contrasts his clothing however the background seems to contain both the dark and the light - emphasised by a chiaroscuro technique used by those such as Caravaggio and Giovanni who used light to emphasise drama and the three-dimensions. 


http://www.ncwyeth.org/ncbio.htm 21:38 Saturday 4/01/14
http://books0977.tumblr.com/post/27845557681/louise-loved-to-climb-to-the-summit-on-one-of-the - Nc Wyeth Lady painting 20:16 07/01/14

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/newell-convers-wyeth-self-portrait-with-pipe-5752478-7details.aspx N.C. Wyeth Self Portrait 20:37 07/01/14

Micheal Palin In Wyeth's World: BBC TWO, Sunday 29th December 2013,21:00