ANDREW WYETH

Via several blogs, I just found out about the death of Andrew Wyeth.

How many of you were fortunate enough to see some of his paintings in person? I was, 3 times.


The Helga series was shown at the J.B. Speed Museum in Louisville, KY some years ago and myself and two friends got there only about an hour before closing time, so we didn't have long enough to see everything. However, I will always remember how incredible her green sweater was - he must have painted every knit and purl stitch in it, varying the colors in each stitch. You could feel the texture of the yarn through the glass.


One year on a trip to PA, I forced my husband to go to Chadd's Ford. There were not a lot of Wyeth's paintings on view there, but enough! I had to laugh because one was hung askew inside the mat, the top was absolutely black and shiny from so much paint, and there was a tear visible at the top of the painting! (We would have thrown it out - he framed it!)


When the the Cincinnati Art Museum had a show of his work I went with a friend and we spent a lot of time both admiring his work and pressing our noses up as close as we could get to figure out "how did he do that?". A few things stick out in my mind about that exhibition:

- There was a drawing with dog foot prints going across it! Can you imagine - we would have thrown that out, but he must have saved absolutely everything!

- There were many "study of . . . " paintings (study of gull, 1947, study of gull 1951, etc.) He painted so many things repeatedly, allowing himself to really learn the intricacies of what he wanted to convey (Rhonda C - take note!)

- Since he painted on the back of paintings (again, not throwing anything away!) they had one of those paintings on display, framed in plexiglass so you could see both sides, sitting in an open area so you could walk around it to view both sides. (I overheard a woman ask why he had painted one painting upside down!)

- The painting of the haystack in a barn that was small and absolutely breathtaking. You could see individual pieces of hay on the haystack and feel the warmth of the light shining on it.


How many of us will ever be able to paint that well?

What a wonderful talent we just lost, but such a wealth of beauty he left behind.