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Archives of American Art NC Wyeth - Cowboy model studio |
Andrew Wyeth who has passed away at the age of 91 was a self-taught artist.
It would be proper for me, as a person who has something to do with colours and
canvases, to remember the celebrated painter of our time. Andrew Wyeth started
his creative journey earlier, say from the cradle. Under his father's
cooperation and guidance, he started his artistic journey at a very young age.
In addition to his family's aesthetic history, Andrew Wyeth had the
inviting rural landscape lying in the surround. He started with the drawing and
catching the sense of romance from the Renaissance and American artist, he went
on painting his watercolours.
Andrew Wyeth had booked a special corner in his heart for the poetry of
Frost and Thoreau. This poetic attachment, well supported by a passion for
music, equipped him for creating a near relationship with nature and
romance.
Known as the "Painter of the people" and for being a realist
artist, he had earned much popularity in America and abroad. The biggest
fame for Andrew Wyeth came from the Helga paintings. It's a long line of
figures, keeping Helga Testorf, as a model.
For the paintings done during the period running from 1971 to 1985, it is
believed that no one knew about the process of the painting going. Neither
Andrew's wife nor Helga's husband knew about Helga acting as a model for
Wyeth's paintings. Everyone knew about the paintings only when all of them were
unveiled and exhibited.
As most of the great master painters always have been controversial, Wyeth
was not an exception. He was a controversial artist throughout his career. At
his young age, It was a period of abstract paintings in America.
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NEA photographer Michael Stewart |
Andrew Wyeth painted
mostly realistic paintings, the landscapes and portraits of Helga being the
main subjects. Though he had attracted a record number of visitors to his
exhibitions, he contrasted his contemporaries in style. He rarely used oil
paint; he mainly used watercolour and egg tempera.
If you want to see
the paintings rich with veiled abstraction and having a strong current of
emotions; then the paintings by Wyeth would be good material. In his paintings
loaded with symbolic contents, Andrew Wyeth had used light and shadow to
illuminate the subjects on his canvases.
His death (2009) is a
matter of mourning for every artist and every art-lover. May God bless his soul
in Heaven. [All the images are in Public Domain, taken from Wikimedia
Commons]
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